IC-NRLF 


lit,  baa 


George  Davidson 


A  LECTURE 


BY 


ROBERT  G. 


SHAKESPEARE.  —  An   intellectual   ocean,  whose    waves   touched   all    the 
shores  of  thought. 


NEW  YORK. 
C.  P.  FARRELL,  PUBLISHER, 


N'OTICE! 


For  any  and  all  of  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  writ 
ings,  the  ONLY    authorized   editions    printed 
from  his  revised  and  enlarged  manuscripts,  al- 
ways send  to 

w 

C    P.    FARRELL, 

NEW  YORK  CITY,  N.  Y. 

When  your  bookseller  says  a  book  is  out  of 
print,  drop  a  postal  card  to  his  authorized  pub- 
lisher and  you  will  be  sure  to  get  the  book  you 
are  looking  for. 


Col.  Iiigfersoll's  Note^to  the   Public. 

Washington,  D.  C.,  July  so, 
I  wish  to  notify  the  public  that  all  books  and  pamphlets  pur- 
porting to  contain  my  lectures,  and  not  containing-  the  imprint  of 
Mr.  C.  P.  FARRELL  as  publisher,  are  spurious,  grossly  inaccu- 
rate, filled  with  mistakes,  horribly  printed,  and  outrageously 
unjust  to  me.  The  publishers  of  all  such  are  simply  literary 
thieves  and  pirates,  and  are  obtaining  money  from  the  public 
under  false  pretences.  These  wretches  have  published  one  lec- 
ture under  four  titles,  and  several  others  under  two  or  three.  I 
take  this  course  to  warn  the  public  that  these  publications  are 
fraudulent;  the  only  correct  editions  being  those  published  by  Mr. 
C.  P.  FARRELL. 

R.   G.   INGERSOLL. 


SHAKESPEARE, 
From  the  Kesselstadt  Death  Mask. 

By  permission'of  Wm.  Hegger,  Esq. 


SHAKESPEARE. 


A  LECTURE 


BY 


ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 


Shakespeare.  —  An   intellectual    ocean,    whose    waves    touched    all   the 
shores  of  thought. 


NEW  YORK. 
C.  P.  FARRELL,  PUBLISHER, 

1895- 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1894, 

BY  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


_  ~fi 

THE  LLCKLER 


y 


SHAKESPEARE. 


i. 


VyiLLIAM  SHAKESPEARE  was  the  greatest 
*  *  genius  of  our  world.  He  left  to  us  the  richest 
legacy  of  all  the  dead — the  treasures  of  the  rarest 
soul  that  ever  lived  and  loved  and  wrought  of  words 
the  statues,  pictures,  robes  and  gems  of  thought. 
He  was  the  greatest  man  that  ever  touched  this 
grain  of  sand  and  tear  ,  we  call  the  world. 

It  is  hard  to  overstate  the  debt  we  owe  to  the 
men  and  women  of  genius.  Take  from  our  world 
what  they  have  given,  and  all  the  niches  would  be 
empty,  all  the  walls  naked  —  meaning  and  connec- 
tion would  fall  from  words  of  poetry  and  fiction, 
music  would  go  back  to  common  air,  and  all  the 
forms  of  subtle  and_enchantingr  Art  would  lose  pro- 


i  encnanting  /\r 

M510347 


4  SHAKESPEARE. 

portion  and  become  the  unmeaning  waste  and  shat^ 
tered  spoil  of  thoughtless  Chance. 

Shakespeare  is  too  great  a  theme.  I  feel  as 
though  endeavoring  to  grasp  a  globe  so  large  that 
the  hand  obtains  no  hold.  He  who  would  worthily 
speak  of  the  great  dramatist  should  be  inspired  by 
"  a  muse  of  fire  that  should  ascend  the  brightest 
heaven  of  invention  "  —  he  should  have  "  a  kingdom 
for  a  stage,  and  monarchs  to  behold  the  swelling 
scene." 

More  than  three  centuries  ago,  the  most  intellect- 
ual of  the  human  race  was  born.  He  was  not  of 
supernatural  origin.  At  his  birth  there  were  no 
celestial  pyrotechnics.  His  father  and  mother  were 
both  English,  and  both  had  the  cheerful  habit  of 
living  in  this  world.  The  cradle  in  which  he 
was  rocked  was  canopied  by  neither  myth  nor 
miracle,  and  in  his  veins  there  was  no  drop  of  royal 
blood. 

This  babe  became  the  wonder  of  mankind. 
Neither  of  his  parents  could  read  or  write.  He 
grew  up  in  a  small  and  ignorant  village  on  the  banks 
of  the  Avon,  in  the  midst  of  the  common  people  of 
three  hundred  years  ago.  There  was  nothing  in  the 
peaceful,  quiet  landscape  on  which  he  looked,  noth- 


SHAKESPEARE.  i> 

ing  in  the  low  hills,  the  cultivated  and  undulating 
fields,  and  nothing  in  the  murmuring  stream,  to  ex- 
cite the  imagination  —  nothing,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
calculated  to  sow  the  seeds  of  the  subtlest  and  sub- 
limest  thought 

So  there  is  nothing  connected  with  his  education, 
or  his  lack  of  education,  that  in  any  way  accounts 
for  what  he  did.  It  is  supposed  that  he  attended 
school  in  his  native  town  —  but  of  this  we  are  not 
certain.  Many  have  tried  to  show  that  he  was,  after 
all,  of  gentle  blood,  but  the  fact  seems  to  be  the 
other  way.  Some  of  his  biographers  have  sought  to 
do  him  honor  by  showing  that  he  was  patronized  by 
Queen  Elizabeth,  but  of  this  there  is  not  the  slightest 
proof. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  never  sat  on  any  throne, 
a  king,  queen,  or  emperor  who  could  have  honored 
William  Shakespeare. 

Ignorant  people  are  apt  to  overrate  the  value  of 
what  is  called  education.  The  sons  of  the  poor, 
having  suffered  the  privations  of  poverty,  think  of 
wealth  as  the  mother  of  joy.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  children  of  the  rich,  finding  that  gold  does  not 
produce  happiness,  are  apt  to  underrate  the  value  of 
wealth.  So  the  children  of  the  educated  often  care 


6  SHAKESPEARE. 

but  little  for  books,  and  hold  all  culture  in  contempt. 
The  children  of  great  authors  do  not,  as  a  rule,  be- 
come writers. 

Nature  is  filled  with  tendencies  and  obstructions. 
Extremes  beget  limitations,  even  as  a  river  by  its 
own  swiftness  creates  obstructions  for  itself. 

Possibly,  many  generations  of  culture  breed  a 
desire  for  the  rude  joys  of  savagery,  and  possibly 
generations  of  ignorance  breed  such  a  longing  for 
knowledge,  that  of  this  desire,  of  this  hunger  of  the 
brain,  Genius  is  born.  It  may  be  that  the  mind,  by 
lying  fallow,  by  remaining  idle  for  generations, 
gathers  strength. 

Shakespeare's  father  seems  to  have  been  an  or- 
dinary man  of  his  time  and  class.  About  the  only 
thing  we  know  of  him  is  that  he  was  officially  re- 
ported for  not  coming  monthly  to  church.  This  is 
good  as  far  as  it  goes.  We  can  hardly  blame  him, 
because  at  that  time  Richard  Bifield  was  the  minister 
at  Stratford,  and  an  extreme  Puritan,  one  who  read 
the  Psalter  by  Sternholcl  and  Hopkins. 

The  church  was  at  one  time  Catholic,  but  in  John 
Shakespeare's  day  it  was  Puritan,  and  in  1664,  the 
year  of  Shakespeare's  birth,  they  had  the  images 
defaced.  It  is  greatly  to  the  honor  of  John 


SHAKESPEARE.  7 

Shakespeare  that  he  refused  to  listen  to  the 
"  tidings  of  great  joy  "  as  delivered  by  the  Puritan 
Bifield. 

Nothing  is  known  of  his  mother,  except  her  beau- 
tiful name  —  Mary  Arden.  In  those  days  but  little 
attention  was  given  to  the  biographies  of  women. 
They  were  born,  married,  had  children,  and  died. 
No  matter  how  celebrated  their  sons  became,  the 
mothers  were  forgotten.  In  old  times,  when  a  man 
achieved  distinction,  great  pains  were  taken  to  find 
out  about  the  father  and  grandfather  —  the  idea 
being  that  genius  is  inherited  from  the  father's  side. 
The  truth  is,  that  all  great  men  have  had  great 


mothers.     Great  women  have  had,  as  a  rule,  great 


fathers. 

The  mother  of  Shakespeare  was,  without  doubt, 
one  of  the  greatest  of  women.  She  dowered  her 
son  with  passion  and  imagination  and  the  higher 
qualities  of  the  soul,  beyond  all  other  men.  It  has 
been  said  that  a  man  of  genius  should  select  his  an- 
cestors with  great  care — and  yet  there  does  not  seem 
to  be  as  much  in  heredity  as  most  people  think. 
The  children  of  the  great  are  often  small.  Pigmies 
are  born  in  palaces,  while  over  the  children  of  genius 
is  the  roof  of  straw.  Most  of  the  great  are  like 


8  SHAKESPEARE. 

mountains,  with  the  valley  of  ancestors  on  one  side 
and  the  depression  of  posterity  on  the  other. 

In  his  day  Shakespeare  was  of  no  particular  im- 
portance. It  may  be  that  his  mother  had  some  mar- 
velous and  prophetic  dreams,  but  Stratford  was 
unconscious  of  the  immortal  child.  He  was  never 
engaged  in  a  reputable  business.  Socially  he  occu- 
pied a  position  below  servants.  The  law  described 
him  as  "  a  sturdy  vagabond."  He  was  neither  a 
noble,  a  soldier,  nor  a  priest.  Among  the  half- 
civilized  people  of  England,  he  who  amused  and  in- 
structed them  was  regarded  as  a  menial.  Kings  had 
their  clowns,  the  people  their  actors  and  musicians. 
Shakespeare  was  scheduled  as  a  servant.  It  is  thus 
that  successful  stupidity  has  always  treated  genius. 
Mozart  was  patronized  by  an  Archbishop — lived  in 
the  palace, — but  was  compelled  to  eat  with  the 
scullions. 

The  composer  of  divine  melodies  was  not  fit  to  sit 
by  the  side  of  the  theologian,  who  long  ago  would 
have  been  forgotten  but  for  the  fame  of  the  com- 
poser. 

We  know  but  little  of  the  personal  peculiarities,  of 
the  daily  life,  or  of  what  may  be  called  the  outward 
Shakespeare,  and  it  may  be  fortunate  that  so  little  is 


SHAKESPEARE.  9 

known.  He  might  have  been  belittled  by  friendly 
fools.  What  silly  stories,  what  idiotic  personal  rem- 
iniscences, would  have  been  remembered  by  those 
who  scarcely  saw  him!  We  have  his  best — his 
sublimest — and  we  have  probably  lost  only  the 
trivial  and  the  worthless.  All  that  is  known  can  be 
written  on  a  page. 

We  are  tolerably  certain  of  the  date  of  his  birth, 
of  his  marriage  and  of  his  death.  We  think  he  went 
to  London  in  i586,  when  he  was  twenty-two  years 
old.  We  think  that  three  years  afterwards  he  was 
part  owner  of  Blackfriars'  Theatre.  We  have  a  few 
signatures,  some  of  which  are  supposed  to  be  gen- 
uine. We  know  that  he  bought  some  land — that 
he  had  two  or  three  law-suits.  We  know  the  names 
of  his  children.  We  also  know  that  this  incompar- 
able man  —  so  apart  from,  and  so  familiar  with,  all 
the  world — lived  during  his  literary  life  in  Lon- 
don— that  he  was  an  actor,  dramatist  and  mana- 
ger— that  he  returned  to  Stratford,  the  place  of 
his  birth, — that  he  gave  his  writings  to  negli- 
gence, deserted  the  children  of  his  brain — that  he 
died  on  the  anniversary  of  his  birth  at  the  age  of 
fifty-two,,  and  that  he  was  buried  in  the  church 
where  the  images  had  been  defaced,  and  that  on  his 


tO  SHAKESPEARE. 

tomb  was  chiseled  a  rude,  absurd  and  ignorant 
epitaph. 

No  letter  of  his  to  any  human  being  has  been 
found,  and  no  line  written  by  him  can  be  shown. 

And  here  let  me  give  my  explanation  of  the  epi- 
taph. Shakespeare  was  an  actor — a  disreputable 
business — but  he  made  money — always  reputable. 
He  came  back  from  London  a  rich  man.  He  bought 
land,  and  built  houses.  Some  of  the  supposed  great 
probably  treated  him  with  deference.  When  he  died 
he  was  buried  in  the  church.  Then  came  a  re- 
action. The  pious  thought  the  church  had  been 
profaned.  They  did  not  feel  that  the  ashes  of  an 
actor  were  fit  to  lie  in  holy  ground.  The  people 
began  to  say  the  body  ought  to  be  removed.  Then 
it  was,  as^JM^eJie^e,  that  Dr.  John  Hall,  Shakes- 
peare's son-in-law,  had  this  epitaph  cut  on  the  tomb  : 

"  Good  friend,  for  Jesus'  sake  forbeare 
To  digg  the  dust  enclosed  heare  : 
Blese  be  ye  man  yt  spares  thes  stones, 
And  curst  be  he  yt  moves  my  bones." 

Certainly  Shakespeare  could  have  had  no  fear  that 
his  tomb  would  be  violated.  How  could  it  have  en- 
tered his  mind  to  have  put  a  warning,  a  threat  and 
a  blessing,  upon  his  grave  ?  But  the  ignorant  peo- 


SHAKESPEARE.  1 1 

pie  of  that  day  were  no  doubt  convinced  that  the 
epitaph  was  the  voice  of  the  dead,  and  so  feeling 
they  feared  to  invade  the  tomb.  In  this  way  the 
dust  was  left  in  peace. 

This  epitaph  gave  me  great  trouble  for  years.  It 
puzzled  me  to  explain  why  he,  who  erected  the  in- 
tellectual pyramids, — great  ranges  of  mountains - 
should  put  such  a  pebble  at  his  tomb.  But  when  I 
stood  beside  the  grave  and  read  the  ignorant  words, 
the  explanation  I  have  given  flashed  upon  me. 

***** 


TT  has  been  said  that  Shakespeare  was  hardly  men- 
tioned by  his  contemporaries,  and  that  he  was 
substantially  unknown.  This  is  a  mistake.  In  1600 
a  book  was  published  called  "  England's  Parnassus" 
and  it  contained  ninety  extracts  from  Shakespeare. 
In  the  same  year  was  published  the  "  Garden  of  the 
Muses"  containing  several  pieces  from  Shakespeare, 
Chapman,  Marston  and  Ben  Johnson.  "  England's 
Helicon "  was  printed  in  the  same  year,  and  con- 
tained poems  from  Spenser,  Greene,  Harvey  and 
Shakespeare. 

In  1600  a  play  was  acted  at  Cambridge,  in  which 


1 2  SHAKESPEARE. 

Shakespeare  was  alluded  to  as  follows  :  "  Why,  here's 
our  fellow  Shakespeare  who  puts  them  all  down." 
John  Weaver  published  a  book  of  poems  in  1695,  in 
which  there  was  a  sonnet  to  Shakespeare.  In 
1 598  Richard  Bamfield  wrote  a  poem  to  Shakes- 
peare. Francis  Meres,  "  clergyman,  master  of  arts 
in  both  universities,  compiler  of  school  books,"  was 
the  author  of  the  "  Wits  Treasury"  In  this  he 
compares  the  ancient  and  modern  tragic  poets,  and 
mentions  Marlowe,  Peel,  Kyd  and  Shakespeare. 
So  he  compares  the  writers  of  comedies,  and  men- 
tions Lilly,  Lodge,  Greene  and  Shakespeare.  He 
speaks  of  elegiac  poets,  and  names  Surrey,  Wyatt, 
Sidney,  Raleigh  and  Shakespeare.  He  compares 
the  lyric  poets,  and  names  Spencer,  Drayton, 
Shakespeare  and  others.  This  same  writer,  speak- 
ing of  Horace,  says  that  England  has  Sidney, 
Shakespeare  and  others,  and  that  "  as  the  soul  of 
Euphorbus  was  thought  to  live  in  Pythagoras,  so 
the  sweet- wittie  soul  of  Ovid  lives  in  the  mellifluous 
and  honey-tongued  Shakespeare."  He  also  says  : 
"  If  the  Muses  could  speak  English,  they  would 
speak  in  Shakespeare's  phrase."  This  was  in  1598. 
In  1607,  John  Davies  alludes  in  a  poem  to  Shakes- 
peare. 


SHAKESPEARE.  1 3 

Of  course  we  are  all  familiar  with  what  rare  Ben 
Jonson  wrote.  Henry  Chettle  took  Shakespeare  to 
task  because  he  wrote  nothing  on  the  death  of 
Queen  Elizabeth. 

It  may  be  wonderful  that  he  was  not  better  known. 
But  is  it  not  wonderful  that  he  gained  the  reputa- 
tion that  he  did  in  so  short  a  time,  and  that  twelve 
years  after  he  began  to  write  he  stood  at  least  with 
the  first  ? 


III. 


there  is  a  wonderful  fact  connected  with  the 
writings  of  Shakespeare  :  In  the  Plays  there  is 
no  direct  mention  of  any  of  his  contemporaries. 
We  do  not  know  of  any  poet,  author,  soldier,  sailor, 
statesman,  priest,  nobleman,  king,  or  queen,  that 
Shakespeare  directly  mentioned. 

Is  it  not  marvellous  that  he,  living  in  an  age  of 
great  deeds,  of  adventures  in  far  off  lands  and  un- 
known seas — in  a  time  of  religious  wars— in  the 
days  of  the  Armada — the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew— the  Edict  of  Nantes — the  assassination  of 
Henry  III.  —  the  victory  of  Lepanto — the  execution 
of  Marie  Stuart — did  not  mention  the  name  of  any 


/.     fi  A  /  . 


14  SHAKESPEARE. 

man  or  woman  of  his  time  ?  Some  have  insisted 
that  the  paragraph  ending  with  the  lines  : 

' '  The  imperial  votress  passed  on  in  maiden  meditation  fancy 
free," 

referred  to  Queen  Elizabeth  ;  but  it  is  impossible 
for  me  to  believe  that  the  daubed  and  wrinkled  face, 
the  small  black  eyes,  the  cruel  nose,  the  thin  lips, 
the  bad  -teeth,  and  the  red  wig  of  Queen  Elizabeth 
could  by  any  possibility  have  inspired  these  marvel- 
lous lines. 

It  is  perfectly  apparent  from  Shakespeare's  writ- 
ings that  he  knew  but  little  of  the  nobility,  little  of 
kings  and  queens.  He  gives  to  these  supposed 
great  people  great  thoughts,  and  puts  great  words  in 
their  mouths  and  makes  them  speak — not  as  they 
really  did — but  as  Shakespeare  thought  such  people 
should.  This  demonstrates  that  he  did  not  know 
them  personally. 

Some  have  insisted  that  Shakespeare  mentions 
Queen  Elizabeth  in  the  last  Scene  of  Henry  VIII. 
The  answer  to  this  is  that  Shakespeare  did  not  write 
the  last  Scene  in  that  Play.  The  probability  is  that 
Fletcher  was  the  author. 

Shakespeare  lived  during  the  great  awakening  of 


SHAKESPEARE.  1 5 

the  world,  when  Europe  emerged  from  the  darkness 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  discovery  of  America 
had  made  England,  that  blossom  of  the  Gulf- Stream, 
the  centre  of  commerce,  and  during  a  period  when 
some  of  the  greatest  writers,  thinkers,  soldiers  and 
discoverers  were  produced. 

Cervantes  was  born  in  1647,  dying  on  the  same 
day  that  Shakespeare  died.  He  was  undoubtedly 
the  greatest  writer  that  Spain  has  produced.  Rubens 
was  born  in  1677.  Camoens,  the  Portuguese,  the 
author  of  the  Lusiad,  died  in  1597.  Giordano 
Bruno — greatest  of  martyrs  —  was  born  in  1548  — 
visited  London  in  Shakespeare's  time  —  delivered 
lectures  at  Oxford,  and  called  that  institution  "  the 
widow  of  learning."  Drake  circled  the  globe  in 
1 5 80.  Galileo  was  born  in  i564 — the  same  year 
with  Shakespeare.  Michael  Angelo  died  in  1563. 
Kepler  —  he  of  the  Three  Laws  —  born  in  i57i. 
Calderon,  the  Spanish  dramatist,  born  in  1601.  Cor- 
neille,  the  French  poet,  in  1606.  Rembrandt, 
greatest  of  painters,  1607.  Shakespeare  was  born 
in  1564.  In  that  year  John  Calvin  died.  What  a 
glorious  exchange ! 

Seveni^L-Jtwo  years  after  the  discovery  of  America 
Shakespeare  was  born,  and  England  was  filled  with 


1 6  SHAKESPEARE. 

the  voyages  and  discoveries  written  by  Hakluyt, 
and  the  wonders  that  had  been  seen  by  Raleigh,  by 
Drake,  by  Frobisher  and  Hawkins.  London  had 
become  the  centre  of  the  world,  and  representatives 
from  all  known  countries  were  in  the  new  metropo- 
lis. The  world  had  been  doubled.  The  imagination 
had  been  touched  and  kindled  by  discovery.  In  the 
far  horizon  were  unknown  lands,  strange  shores  be- 
yond untraversed  seas.  Toward  every  part  of  the 
world  were  turned  the  prows  of  adventure.  All 
these  things  fanned  the  imagination  into  flame,  and 
this  had  its  effect  upon  the  literary  and  dramatic 
world.  And  yet  Shakespeare — the  master  spirit  of 
mankind — in  the  midst  of  these  discoveries,  of  these 
adventures,  mentioned  no  navigator,  no  general,  no 
discoverer,  no  philosopher. 

Galileo  was  reading  the  open  volume  of  the  sky, 
but  Shakespeare  did  not  mention  him.  This  to  me 
is  the  most  marvellous  thing  connected  with  this 
most  marvellous  man. 

At  that  time  England  was  prosperous  —was  then 
laying  the  foundation  of  her  future  greatness  and 
power. 

When  men  are  prosperous,  they  are  in  love  with 
life.  Nature  grows  beautiful,  the  arts  begin  to 


SHAKESPEARE.  1 7 

flourish,  there  is  work  for  painter  and  sculptor,  the 
poet  is  born,  the  stage  is  erected  —  and  this  life  with 
which  men  are  in  love,  is  represented  in  a  thousand 
forms. 

Nature,  or  Fate,  or  Chance  prepared  a  stage  fur 
Shakespeare,  and  Shakespeare  prepared  a  stage  foi 
Nature. 

Famine  and  faith  go  together.  In  disaster  and 
want  the  gaze  of  man  is  fixed  upon  another  world. 
He  that  eats  a  crust  has  a  creed.  Hunger  falls  upon 
its  knees,  and  heaven,  looked  for  through  tears,  is 
the  mirage  of  misery.  But  prosperity  brings  joy 
and  wealth  and  leisure  —  and  the  beautiful  is  born. 

One  of  the  effects  of  the  world's  awakening  was 
Shakespeare.  We  account  for  this  man  as  we  do 
for  the  highest  mountain,  the  greatest  river,  the 
most  perfect  gem.  We  can  only  say  :  He  was. 

(( It  hath  been  taught  us  from  the  primal  state 
That  he  which  is  was  wished  until  he  were." 


IV. 


I 


N  Shakespeare's  time  the  actor  was  a  vagabond,  the 
dramatist  a  disreputable  person  —  and  yet  the 
greatest  dramas  were  then  written.  In  spite  of  law, 
and  social  ostracism,  Shakespeare  reared  the  many- 


1 8  SHAKESPEARE. 

colored  dome  that  fills  and  glorifies  the  intellectual 
heavens. 

Now  the  whole  civilized  world  believes  in  the 
theatre  —  asks  for  some  great  dramatist  —  is  hungry 
for  a  play  worthy  of  the  century,  is  anxious  to  give 
gold  and  fame  to  any  one  who  can  worthily  put  our 
age  upon  the  stage  —  and  yet  no  great  play  has  been 
written  since  Shakespeare  died. 

Shakespeare  pursued  the  highway  of  the  right. 
He  did  not  seek  to  put  his  characters  in  a  position 
where  it  was  right  to  do  wrong.  He  was  sound  and 
healthy  to  the  centre.  It  never  occurred  to  him  to 
write  a  play  in  which  a  wife's  lover  should  be  jealous 
of  her  husband. 

There  was  in  his  blood  the  courage  of  his  thought. 
He  was  true  to  himself  and  enjoyed  the  perfect  free- 
dom of  the  highest  art.  He  did  not  write  according 
to  rules  —  but  smaller  men  make  rules  from  what  he 
wrote. 

How  fortunate  that  Shakespeare  was  not  educated 
at  Oxford  —  that  the  winged  god  within  him  never 
knelt  to  the  professor.  How  fortunate  that  this 
giant  was  not  captured,  tied  and  tethered  by  the 
literary  Liliputians  of  his  time. 

He    was    an    idealist.      He    did    not  —  like    most 


SHAKESPEARE.  19 

writers  of  our  time  — take  refuge  in  the  real,  hiding  a 
lack  of  genius  behind  a  pretended  love  of  truth.  All 
realities  are  not  poetic,  or  dramatic,  or  even  worth 
knowing.  The  real  sustains  the  same  relation  to  the 
ideal  that  a  stone  does  to  a  statue  —  or  that  paint 
does  to  a  painting.  Realism  degrades  and  impover- 
ishes. In  no  event  can  a  realist  be  more  than  an 
imitator  and  copyist.  According  to  the  realist's 
philosophy,  the  wax  that  receives  and  retains  an 


image  is  an  artist. 


Shakespeare  did  not  rely  on  the  stage-carpenter, 
or  the  scenic  painter.  He  put  his  scenery  in  his 
lines.  There  you  will  find  mountains  and  rivers  and 
seas,  valleys  and  cliffs,  violets  and  clouds,  and  over 
all  "  the  firmament  fretted  with  gold  and  fire."  He 
cared  little  for  plot,  little  for  surprise.  He  did  not 
rely  on  stage  effects,  or  red  fire.  The  plays  grow 
before  your  eyes,  and  they  come  as  the  morning 
comes.  Plot  surprises  but  once.  There  must  be 
something  in  a  play  besides  surprise.  Plot  in  an 
author  is  a  kind  of  strategy — that  is  to  say,  a  sort  of 
cunning,  and  cunning  does  not  belong  to  the  highest 
natures. 

There  is  in  Shakespeare  such  a  wealth  of  thought 
that  the  plot  becomes  almost  immaterial  —  and  such 


2O  SHAKESPEARE. 

is  this  wealth  that  you  can  hardly  know  the  play  — 
there  is  too  much.     After  you  have  heard  it  again 
and   again,  it  seems    as   pathless  as  an   untrodden 
forest. 

.  He  belonged  to  all  lands.  "  Timon  of  Athens  " 
is  as  Greek  as  any  tragedy  of  Eschylus.  "  Julius 
Caesar  "  and  "  Coriolanus  "  are  perfect  Roman,  and 
as  you  read,  the  mighty  ruins  rise  and  the  Eternal 
City  once  again  becomes  the  mistress  of  the  world. 
No  play  is  more  Egyptian  than  "  Antony  and  Cleo- 
patra " —  the  Nile  runs  through  it,  the  shadows  of 
the  pyramids  fall  upon  it,  and  from  its  scenes  the 
Sphinx  gazes  forever  on  the  outstretched  sands. 

"  In  "  Lear  "  is  the  true  pagan  spirit.  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet  "  is  Italian — everything  is  sudden,  love 
bursts  into  immediate  flower,  and  in  every  scene  is 
the  climate  of  the  land  of  poetry  and  passion. 

The  reason  of  this  is,  that  Shakespeare  dealt  with 
elemental  things,  with  universal  man.  He  knew 
that  locality  colors  without  changing,  and  that  in  all 
surroundings  the  human  heart  is  substantially  the 
same. 

Not  all  the  poetry  written  before  his  time  would 
make  his  sum  —  not  all  that  has  been  written  since, 
added  to  all  that  was  written  before,  would  equal  his. 


SHAKESPEARE.  21 

There  was  nothing  within  the  range  of  human 
thought,  within  the  horizon  of  intellectual  effort,  that 
he  did  not  touch.  He  knew  the  brain  and  heart  of 
man  —  the  theories,  customs,  superstitions,  hopes, 
fears,  hatreds,  vices  and  virtues  of  the  human 
race. 

He  knew  the  thrills  and  ecstacies  of  love,  the  sav- 
age joys  of  hatred  and  revenge.  He  heard  the  hiss 
of  envy's  snakes  and  watched  the  eagles  of  ambition 
soar.  There  was  no  hope  that  did  not  put  its  star 
above  his  head  —  no  fear  he  had  not  felt  —  no  joy 
that  had  not  shed  its  sunshine  on  his  face.  He  ex- 
perienced the  emotions  of  mankind.  He  was  the 
intellectual  spendthrift  of  the  world.  He  gave  with 
the  generosity,  the  extravagance,  of  madness. 

Read  one  play,  and  you  are  impressed  with  the 
idea  that  the  wealth  of  the  brain  of  a  god  has  been 
exhausted  —  that  there  are  no  more  comparisons,  no 
more  passions  to  be  expressed,  no  more  definitions, 
no  more  philosophy,  beauty,  or  sublimity  to  be  put 
in  words  —  and  yet,  the  next  play  opens  as  fresh  as 
the  dewy  gates  of  another  day. 

The  outstretched  wings  of  his  imagination  filled 
the  sky.  He  was  the  intellectual  crown  o'  the 
earth. 


22  SHAKESPEARE. 

V. 

HE  plays  of  Shakespeare  show  so  much  knowl- 
edge, thought  and  learning,  that  many  people 
—  those  who  imagine  that  universities  furnish  capac- 
ity —  contend  that  Bacon  must  have  been  the  author. 

We  know  Bacon.  We  know  that  he  was  a 
scheming  politician,  a  courtier,  a  time-server  of 
church  and  king,  and  a  corrupt  judge.  We  know 
that  he  never  admitted  the  truth  of  the  Copernican 
system  —  that  he  was  doubtful  whether  instruments 
were  of  any  advantage  in  scientific  investigation  - 
that  he  was  ignorant  of  the  higher  branches  of  math- 
ematics, and  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  added  but 
little  to  the  knowledge  of  the  world.  When  he  was 
more  than  sixty  years  of  age,  he  turned  his  attention 
to  poetry,  and  dedicated  his  verses  to  George 
Herbert. 

If  you  will  read  these  verses  you  will  say  that  the 
author  of  "  Lear  "  and  "  Hamlet "  did  not  write  them. 

Bacon  dedicated  his  work  on  the  Advancement  of 
Learning,  Divine  and  Human,  to  James  I.,  and  in 
his  dedication  he  stated  that  there  had  not  been, 
since  the  time  of  Christ,  any  king  or  monarch  so 
learned  in  all  erudition,  divine  or  human.  He 
placed  James  the  First  before  Marcus  Aurelius  and 


SHAKESPEARE.  23 

\ 

all  other  kings  and  emperors  since  Christ,  and  con- 
cluded by  saying  that  James  the  First  had  "  the 
power  and  fortune  of  a  king,  the  illumination  of  a 
priest,  the  learning  and  universality  of  a  philosopher." 
This  was  written  of  James  the  First,  described  by 
Macauley  as  a  "  stammering,  slobbering,  trembling 
coward,  whose  writings  were  deformed  by  the 
grossest  and  vilest  superstitions  — witches  being  the 
special  objects  of  his  fear,  his  hatred,  and  his  perse- 
cution." 

It  seems  to  have  been  taken  for  granted  that  if 
Shakespeare  was  not  the  author  of  the  great  dramas, 
Lord  Bacon  must  have  been. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  Bacon  was  the  greatest 
philosopher  of  his  time.  And  yet  in  reading  his 
works  we  find  that  there  was  in  his  mind  a  strange 
mingling  of  foolishness  and  philosophy.  He  takes 
pains  to  tell  us,  and  to  write  it  down  for  the  benefit 
of  posterity,  that  "  snow  is  colder  than  water, 
because  it  hath  more  spirit  in  it,  and  that  quicksilver 
is  the  coldest  of  all  metals,  because  it  is  the  fullest  of 
spirit." 

He  stated  that  he  hardly  believed  that  you  could 
contract  air  by  putting  opium  on  top  of  the  weather 
glass,  and  gave  the  following  reason  : 


24  SHAKESPEARE. 

"  I  conceive  that  opium  and  the  like  make  spirits 
fly  rather  by  malignity  than  by  cold." 

This  great  philosopher  gave  the  following  recipe 
for  staunching  blood  : 

"  Thrust  the  part  that  bleedeth  into  the  body  of  a 
capon,  new  ripped  and  bleeding.  This  will  staunch 
the  blood.  The  blood,  as  it  seemeth,  sucking  and 
drawing  up  by  similitude  of  substance  the  blood  it 
meeteth  with,  and  so  itself  going  back." 

The  philosopher  also  records  this  important   fact : 

"  Divers  witches  among  heathen  and  Christians 
have  fed  upon  man's  flesh  to  aid,  as  it  seemeth,  their 
imagination  with  high  and  foul  vapors." 

Lord  Bacon  was  not  only  a  philosopher,  but  he 
was  a  biologist,  as  appears  from  the  following  : 

"  As  for  living  creatures,  it  is  certain  that  their 
vital  spirits  are  a  substance  compounded  of  an  airy 
and  flamy  matter,  and  although  air  and  flame  being 
free  will  not  mingle,  yet  bound  in  by  a  body  that 
hath  some  fixing,  will." 

Now  and  then  the  inventor  of  deduction  reasons 
by  analogy.  He  says  : 

"  As  snow  and  ice  holpen,  and  their  cold  activated 
by  nitre  or  salt,  will  turn  water  into  ice,  so  it  may  be 
it  will  turn  wood  or  stiff  clay  into  stone." 


SHAKESPEARE.  25 

Bacon  seems  to  have  been  a  believer  in  the  trans- 
mutation of  metals,  and  solemnly  gives  a  formula  for 
changing  silver  or  copper  into  gold.  He  also  be- 
lieved in  the  transmutation  of  plants,  and  had  arrived 
at  such  a  height  in  entomology  that  he  informed  the 
world  that  "  insects  have  no  blood." 

It  is  claimed  that  he  was  a  great  observer,  and  as 
evidence  of  this  he  recorded  the  wonderful  fact  that 
"  tobacco  cut  and  dried  by  the  fire  loses  weight ;" 
that  "  bears  in  the  winter  wax  fat  in  sleep,  though 
they  eat  nothing  ;"  that  "  tortoises  have  no  bones  ;" 
that  "  there  is  a  kind  of  stone,  if  ground  and  put  in 
water  where  cattle  drink,  the  cows  will  give  more 
milk  ;"  that  "it  is  hard  to  cure  a  hurt  in  a  French- 
man's head,  but  easy  in  his  leg  ;  that  it  is  hard  to 
cure  a  hurt  in  an  Englishman's  leg,  but  easy  in  his 
head  ;"  that  "  wounds  made  with  brass  weapons  are 
easier  to  cure  than  those  made  with  iron;"  that 
"  lead  will  multiply  and  increase,  as  in  statues  buried 
in  the  ground  ;"  and  that  "  the  rainbow  touching 
anything  causeth  a  sweet  smell." 

Bacon  seems  also  to  have  turned  his  attention  to 
ornithology,  and  says  that  "  eggs  laid  in  the  full  of 
the  moon  breed  better  birds,"  and  that  "  you  can 
make  swallows  white  by  putting  ointment  on  the 
eggs  before  they  are  hatched." 


26  SHAKESPEARE. 

He  also  informs  us  "  that  witches  cannot  hurt  kings 
as  easily  as  they  can  common  people  ;"  that  "  per- 
fumes dry  and  strengthen  the  brain  ;"  that  "  any  one 
in  the  moment  of  triumph  can  be  injured  by  another 
who  casts  an  envious  eye,  and  the  injury  is  greatest 
when  the  envious  glance  comes  from  the  oblique 
eye." 

Lord  Bacon  also  turned  his  attention  to  medicine, 
and  he  states  that "  bracelets  made  of  snakes  are  good 
for  curing  cramps  ;"  that  "the  skin  of  a  wolf  might 
cure  the  colic,  because  a  wolf  has  great  digestion  ;" 
that  "  eating  the  roasted  brains  of  hens  and  hares 
strengthens  the  memory  ;"  that  "  if  a  woman  about 
to  become  a  mother  eats  a  good  many  quinces  and 
considerable  coriander  seed,  the  child  will  be  ingen- 
ious," and  that  "  the  moss  which  groweth  on  the 
skull  of  an  unburied  dead  man  is  good  for  staunch- 
ing blood." 

He  expresses  doubt,  however,  "  as  to 'whether  you 
can  cure  a  wound  by  putting  ointment  on  the  weapon 
that  caused  the  wound,  instead  of  on  the  wound  it- 
self." 

It  is  claimed  by  the  advocates  of  the  Baconian 
theory  that  their  hero  stood  at  the  top  of  science  ; 
and  yet  "  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  he  was  ignorant 


SHAKESPEARE.  2/ 

of  the  law  of  the  acceleration  of  falling  bodies,  al- 
though the  law  had  been  made  krhown  and  printed 
by  Galileo  thirty  years  before  Bacon  wrote  upon  the 
subject.  Neither  did  this  great  man  understand  the 
principle  of  the  lever.  He  was  not  acquainted  with 
the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact  was  ill-read  in  those  branches  of  learning  in 
which,  in  his  time,  the  most  rapid  progress  had  been 
made." 

After  Kepler  discovered  his  third  law,  which  was  on 
the  1 5th  of  May,  1618,  Bacon  was  more  than  ever 
opposed  to  the  Copernican  system.  This  great  man 
was  far  behind  his  own  time,  not  only  in  astronomy, 
but  in  mathematics.  In  the  preface  to  the  "  De- 
scriptio  Globi  Intellectualis,"  it  is  admitted  either 
that  Bacon  had  never  heard  of  the  correction  of  the 
parallax,  or  was  unable  to  understand  it.  He  com- 
plained on  account  of  the  want  of  some  method  for 
shortening  mathematical  calculations  ;  and  yet  "  Na- 
pier's Logarithms  "  had  been  printed  nine  years  be- 
fore the  date  of  his  complaint. 

He  attempted  to  form  a  table  of  specific  gravities 
by  a  rude  process  of  his  own,  a  process  that  no  one 
has  ever  followed  ;  and  he  did  this  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  a  far  better  method  existed. 


28  SHAKESPEARE. 

We  have  the  right  to  compare  what  Bacon  wrote 
with  what  it  is  claimed  Shakespeare  produced.  I 
call  attention  to  one  thing  —  to  Bacon's  opinion  of 
human  love.  It  is  this  : 

"  The  stage  is  more  beholding  to  love  than  the  life 
of  man.  As  to  the  stage,  love  is  ever  matter  of 
comedies  and  now  and  then  of  tragedies,  but  in  life 
it  doth  much  mischief — sometimes  like  a  siren, 
sometimes  like  a  fury.  Amongst  all  the  great  and 
worthy  persons  there  is  not  one  that  hath  been 
transported  to  the  mad  degree  of  love,  which  shows 
that  great  spirits  and  great  business  do  keep  out  this 
weak  passion." 

The  author  of  "  Romeo  and  Juliet  "  never  wrote 
that. 

It  seems  certain  that  the  author  of  the  wondrous 
Plays  was  one  of  the  noblest  of  men. 

Let  us  see  what  sense  of  honor  Bacon  had. 

In  writing  commentaries  on  certain  passages  of 
Scripture,  Lord  Bacon  tells  a  courtier,  who  has  com- 
mitted some  offense,  how  to  get  back  into  the  graces 
of  his  prince  or  king.  Among  other  things  he  tells 
him  not  to  appear  too  cheerful,  but  to  assume  a  very 
grave  and  modest  face  ;  not  to  bring  the  matter  up 
himself;  to  be  extremelv  industrious,  so  that  the 


SHAKESPEARE.  29 

prince  will  see  that  it  is  hard  to  get  along  without 
him  ;  also  to  get  his  friends  to  tell  the  prince  or  king 
how  badly  he,  the  courtier,  feels  ;  and  then  he  says, 
all  these  failing,  "  let  him  contrive  to  transfer  the 
fault  to  others." 

It  is  true  that  we  know  but  little  of  Shakespeare, 
and  consequently  do  not  positively  know  that  he  did 
not  have  the  ability  to  write  the  Plays  —  but  we  do 
know  Bacon,  and  we  know  that  he  could  not  have 
written  these  Plays  —  consequently,  they  must  have 
been  written  by  a  comparatively  unknown  man  — 
that  is  to  say,  by  a  man  who  was  known  by  no  other 
writings.  The  fact  that  we  do  not  know  Shakes- 
peare, except  through  the  Plays  and  Sonnets,  makes 
it  possible  for  us  to  believe  that  he  was  the  author. 

Some  people  have  imagined  that  the  Plays  were 
written  by  several  —  but  this  only  increases  the  won- 
der, and  adds  a  useless  burden  to  credulity. 

Bacon  published  in  his  time  all  the  writings  that 
he  claimed.  Naturally,  he  would  have  claimed  his 
best.  Is  it  possible  that  Bacon  left  the  wondrous 
children  of  his  brain  on  the  door-step  of  Shakes- 
peare, and  kept  the  deformed  ones  at  home  ?  Is  it 
possible  that  he  fathered  the  failures  and  deserted 
the  perfect  ? 


3O  SHAKESPEARE. 

Of  course,  it  is  wonderful  that  so  little  has  been 
found  touching  Shakespeare  —  but  is  it  not  equally 
wonderful,  if  Bacon  was  the  author,  that  not  a  line 
has  been  found  in  all  his  papers,  containing  a  sug- 
gestion, or  a  hint,  that  he  was  the  writer  of  these 
Plays  ?  Is  it  not  wonderful  that  no  fragment  of  any 
scene  —  no  line  —  no  word  —  has  been  found  ? 

Some  have  insisted  that  Bacon  kept  the  author- 
ship secret,  because  it  was  disgraceful  to  write  Plays. 
This  argument  does  not  cover  the  Sonnets  —  and 
besides,  one  who  had  been  stripped  of  the  robes  of 
office,  for  receiving  bribes  as  a  judge,  could  have 
borne  the  additional  disgrace  of  having  written 
"  Hamlet."  The  fact  that  Bacon  did  not  claim  to  be 
the  author,  demonstrates  that  he  was  not.  Shakes- 
peare claimed  to  be  the  author,  and  no  one  in  his 
time  or  day  denied  the  claim.  This  demonstrates 
that  he  was. 

Bacon  published  his  works,  and  said  to  the  world  : 
This  is  what  I  have  done. 

Suppose  you  found  in  a  cemetery  a  ifionument 
erected  to  John  Smith,  inventor  of  the  Smith-churn, 
and  suppose  you  were  told  that  Mr.  Smith  provided 
for  the  monument  in  his  will,  and  dictated  the  in- 
scription —  would  it  be  possible  to  convince  you 


SHAKESPEARE.  3 1 

that  Mr.  Smith  was  also  the  inventor  of  the  locomo- 
tive and  telegraph  ? 

Bacon's  best  can  be  compared  with  Shakespeare's 
common,  but  Shakespeare's  best  rises  above  Bacon's 
best,  like  a  domed  temple  above  a  beggar's  hut. 


VI. 


course  it  is  admitted  that  there  were  many 
dramatists  before  and  during  the  time  of 
Shakespeare — but  they  were  only  the  foot  hills  of 
that  mighty  peak  the  top  of  which  the  clouds  and 
mists  still  hide.  Chapman  and  Marlowe,  Heywood 
and  Jonson,  Webster,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  wrote 
some  great  lines,  and  in  the  monotony  of  declama- 
tion now  and  then  is  found  a  strain  of  genuine  music 
— -but  all  of  them  together  constituted  only  a  herald 
of  Shakespeare.  In  all  these  Plays  there  is  but  a 
hint,  a  prophecy,  of  the  great  drama  destined  to  revo- 
lutionize the  poetic  thought  of  the  world. 

Shakespeare  was  the  greatest  of  poets.  What 
Greece  and  Rome  produced  was  great  until  his  time. 
"  Lions  make  leopards  tame." 

The  great  poet  is  a  great  artist.  He  is  painter 
and  sculptor.  The  greatest  pictures  and  statues 


32  SHAKESPEARE. 

have  been  painted  and  chiseled  with  words.  They 
outlast  all  others.  All  the  galleries  of  the  world  are 
poor  and  cheap  compared  with  the  statues  and  pic- 
tures in  Shakespeare's  book. 

Language  is  made  of  pictures  represented  by 
sounds.  The  outer  world  is  a  dictionary  of  the 
mind,  and  the  artist  called  the  soul  uses  this  diction- 
ary of  things  to  express  what  happens  in  the  noise- 
less and  invisible  world  of  thought.  First  a  sound 
represents  something  in  the  outer  world,  and  after- 
wards something  in  the  inner,  and  this  sound  at  last 
is  represented  by  a  mark,  and  this  mark  stands  for  a 
picture,  and  every  brain  is  a  gallery,  and  the  artists 
— that  is  to  say,  the  souls  —  exchange  pictures  and 
statues. 

All  art  is  of  the  same  parentage.  The  poet  uses 
words  —  makes  pictures  and  statues  of  sounds.  The 
sculptor  expresses  harmony,  proportion,  passion,  in 
marble  ;  the  composer,  in  music  ;  the  painter  in  form 
and  color.  The  dramatist  expresses  himself  not  only 
in  words,  not  only  paints  these  pictures,  but"  he  ex- 
presses his  thought  in  action. 

Shakespeare  was  not  only  a  poet,  but  a  dramatist, 
and  expressed  the  ideal,  the  poetic,  not  only  in  words, 
but  in  action.  There  are  the  wit,  the  humor,  the 


SHAKESPEARE.  33 

pathos,  the  tragedy  of  situation,  of  relation.  The 
dramatist  speaks  and  acts  through  others  —  his  per- 
sonality is  lost.  The  poet  lives  in  the  world  of 
thought  and  feeling,  and  to  this  the  dramatist  adds 
the  world  of  action.  He  creates  characters  that 
seem  to  act  in  accordance  with  their  own  natures 
and  independently  of  him.  He  compresses  lives  into 
hours,  tells  us  the  secrets  of  the  heart,  shows  us  the 
springs  of  action  —  how  desire  bribes  the  judgment 
and  corrupts  the  will  —  how  weak  the  reason  is 
when  passion  pleads,  and  how  grand  it  is  to  stand 
for  right  against  the  world. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  fine  things,  —  great  things, 
dramatic  things,  must  be  done. 

Let  me  give  you  an  illustration  of  dramatic  inci- 
dent accompanying  the  highest  form  of  poetic  ex- 
pression : 

Macbeth  having  returned  from  the  murder  of 
Duncan  says  to  his  wife  : 

' '  Methought  I  heard  a  voice  cry  :  Sleep  no  more, 
Macbeth  does  murder  sleep  ;  the  innocent  sleep  ; 
Sleep,  that  knits  up  the  ravelled  sleeve  of  care, 
The  death  of  each  day's  life,  sore  labor's  bath, 
Balm  of  hult  minds,  great  Nature's  second  course, 
Chief  nourisher  in  life' s  feast. "       *      *      * 


34  SHAKESPEARE. 

"Still  it  cried  :  Sleep  no  more,  to  all  the  house, 
Glamis  hath  murdered  sleep,  and  therefore  Cawdor 
Shall  sleep  no  more — Macbeth  shall  sleep  no  more." 

She  exclaims  : 

' '  Who  was  it  that  thus  cried  ? 

Why,  worthy  Tliane,  you  do  unbend  your  noble  strength 
To  think  so  brain-sickly  of  things  ;  get  some  water, 
And  wash  this  filthy  witness  from  your  hand. 
Why  did  you  bring  the  daggers  from  the  place?" 

Macbeth  was  so  overcome  with  horror  at  his  own 
deed,  that  he  not  only  mistook  his  thoughts  for  the 
words  of  others,  but  was  so  carried  away  and  beyond 
himself  that  he  brought  with  him  the  daggers  —  the 
evidence  of  his  guilt  —  the  daggers  that  he  should 
have  left  with  the  dead.  This  is  dramatic. 

In  the  same  play,  the  difference  of  feeling  before 
and  after  the  commission  of  a  crime  is  illustrated  to 
perfection.  When  Macbeth  is  on  his  way  to  assassin- 
ate the  king,  the  bell  strikes,  and  he  says,  or  whis- 
pers : 

"  Hear  it  not,  Duncan,  for  it  is  a  knell." 

Afterward,  when  the  deed  has  been  committed, 
and  a  knocking  is  heard  at  the  gate,  he  cries  : 

"  Wake  Duncan  with  thy  knocking.     I  would  thou  couldst." 


SHAKESPEARE.  35 

Let  me  give  one  more  instance  of  dramatic  action. 
When  Antony  speaks  above  the  body  of  Caesar  he 
says  : 

' '  You  all  do  know  this  mantle  :  I  remember 
The  first  time  ever  Caesar  put  it  on  — 
'Twas  on  a  summer's  evening,  in  his  tent, 
That  day  he  overcame  the  Nervii : 
Look  !     In  this  place  ran  Cassius'  dagger  through  : 
See  what  a  rent  the  envious  Casca  made  ! 
Through  this  the  well-beloved  Brutus  stabbed, 
And  as  he  plucked  his  cursed  steel  away, 
Mark  how  the  blood  of  Csesar  followed  it." 


VII. 


HPHERE  are  men,  and  many  of  them,  who  are  al- 
ways trying  to  show  that  somebody  else  chiseled 
the  statue  or  painted  the  picture,  —  that  the  poem  is 
attributed  to  the  wrong  man,  and  that  the  battle  was 
really  won  by  a  subordinate. 

Of  course  Shakespeare  made  use  of  the  work  of 
others  —  and,  we  might  almost  say,  of  all  others. 
Every  writer  must  use  the  work  of  others.  The  only 
question  is,  how  the  accomplishments  of  other  minds 
are  used,  whether  as  a  foundation  to  build  higher,  or 
whether  stolen  to  the  end  that  the  thief  may  make  a 


36  SHAKESPEARE. 

reputation  for  himself,  without  adding  to  the  great 
structure  of  literature. 

Thousands  of  people  have  stolen  stones  from  the 
Coliseum  to  make  huts  for  themselves.  So  thou- 
sands of  writers  have  taken  the  thoughts  of  others 
with  which  to  adorn  themselves.  These  are  plagiar- 
ists. But  the  man  who  takes  the  thought  of  another, 
adds  to  it,  gives  it  intensity  and  poetic  form,  throb 
and  life, — is  in  the  highest  sense  original. 

Shakespeare  found  nearly  all  of  his  facts  in  the 
writings  of  others  and  was  indebted  to  others  for 
most  of  the  stories  of  his  plays.  The  question  is  not: 
Who  furnished  the  stone,  or  who  owned  the  quarry, 
but  who  chiseled  the  statue  ? 

We  now  know  all  the  books  that  Shakespeare 
could  have  read,  and  consequently  know  many  of 
the  sources  of  his  information.  We  find  in  Pliny  s 
Natural  History,  published  in  1601,  the  following  : 
"  The  sea  Pontis  evermore  floweth  and  runneth  out 
into  the  Propontis  ;  but  the  sea  never  retireth  back 
again  with  the  Impontis."  This  was  the  raw  mate- 
rial, and  out  of  it  Shakespeare  made  the  following  : 

"Like  to  the  Pontic  Sea, 
Whose  icy  current  and  compulsive  course 
Ne'  er  feels  retiring  ebb,  but  keeps  due  on 


SHAKESPEARE.  37 


To  the  Propontic  and  the  Hellespont 

Even  so  my  bloody  thoughts,  with  violent  pace, 
Shall  ne'er  turn  back,  ne'er  ebb  to  humble  love, 
Till  that  a  capable  and  wide  revenge 
Swallow  them  up. ' ' 

Perhaps  we  can  give  an  idea  of  the  difference  be- 
tween Shakespeare  and  other  poets,  by  a  passage 
from  "  Lear."  When  Cordelia  places  her  hand  upon 
her  father's  head  and  speaks  of  the  night  and  of  the 
storm,  an  ordinary  poet  might  have  said  : 

* '  On  such  a  night,  a  dog 
Should  have  stood  against  my  fire. ' ' 

A  very  great  poet  might  have  gone  a  step  further 
and  exclaimed  : 

11  On  such  a  night,  mine  enemy's  dog 
Should  have  stood  against  my  fire. ' ' 

But  Shakespeare  said  : 

"  Mine  enemy's  dog,  though  he  had  bit  me, 
Should  have  stood,  that  night,  against  my  fire." 

Of  all  the  poets  —  of  all  the  writers  —  Shakespeare 
is  the  most  original.  He  is  as  original  as  Nature. 

It  may  truthfully  be  said  that  "  Nature  wants  stuff 
to  vie  strange  forms  with  fancy,  to  make  another." 


38  SHAKESPEARE. 

VIII. 

HPHERE  is  in  the  greatest  poetry  a  kind  of  extrav- 
agance  that  touches  the  infinite,  and  in  this 
Shakespeare  exceeds  all  others. 

You  will  remember  the  description  given  of  the 
voyage  of  Paris  in  search  of  Helen  : 

"  The  seas  and  winds,  old  wranglers,  made  a  truce, 
And  did  him  service  ;  he  touched  the  ports  desired, 
And  for  an  old  aunt,  whom  the  Greeks  held  captive, 
He  brought  a  Grecian  queen  whose  youth  and  freshness 
Wrinkles  Apollo,  and  makes  stale  the  morning." 

So,  in  Pericles,  when  the  father  finds  his  daughter, 
he  cries  out : 

' '  O  Helicanus  !  strike  me,  honored  sir  ; 
Give  me  a  gash,  put  me  to  present  pain, 
Lest  this  great  sea  of  joys,  rushing  upon  me, 
O'erbear  the  shores  of  my  mortality." 

The  greatest  compliment  that  man  has  ever  paid 

to  the  woman  he  adores  is  this  line  : 

c- 
"  Eyes  that  do  mislead  the  morn." 

Nothing  can  be  conceived  more  perfectly  poetic. 

In  that  marvellous  play,  the  "  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,"  is  one  of  the  most  extravagant  things  in 
literature  : 


SHAKESPEARE.  39 

* '  Thou  rememberest 
Since  once  I  sat  upon  a  promontory, 
And  heard  a  mermaid  on  a  dolphin's  back 
Uttering  such  dulcet  and  harmonious  breath 
That  the  rude  sea  grew  civil  at  her  song, 
And  certain  stars  shot  madly  from  their  spheres 
To  hear  the  sea-maid's  music." 

This  is  so  marvellously  told  that  it  almost  seems 
probable. 

So  the  description  of  Mark  Antony  : 

1 '  For  his  bounty 

There  was  no  winter  in't  —  an  autumn  t'was 
That  grew  the  more  by  reaping. .    His  delights 
Were  dolphin-like — they  showed  his  back  above 
The  element  they  lived  in. ' ' 

Think  of  the  astronomical  scope  and  amplitude  of 
this  : 

"  Her  bed  is  India — there  she  lies  a  pearl." 

Is  there  anything  more  intense  than  these  words 
of  Cleopatra  ? 

' '  Rather  on  Nilus  mud  lay  me  stark  naked 
And  let  the  water-flies  blow  me  into  abhorring. ' ' 

Or  this  of  Isabella  : 

11  The  impression  of  keen  whips  I'd  wear  as  rubies, 
And  strip  myself  to  death  as  to  a  bed 
That  longing  I've  been  sick  for,  ere  I  yield 
My  body  up  to  shame." 


4O  SHAKESPEARE. 

Is  there  an  intellectual  man  in  the  world  who  will 
not  agree  with  this  ? 

"Let  me  not  live 

After  my  flame  lacks  oil,  to  be  the  snuff 
Of  younger  spirits. ' ' 

Can  anything  exceed  the  words  of  Troilus  when 
parting  with  Cressida  : 

"  We  two,  that  with  so  many  thousand  sighs 
Did  buy  each  other,  most  poorly  sell  ourselves 
With  the  rude  brevity  and  discharge  of  one. 
Injurious  time  now  with  a  robber's  haste 
Crams  his  rich  thievery  up,  he  knows  not  how  ; 
As  many  farewells  as  be  stars  in  heaven, 
With  distinct  breath  and  consigned  kisses  to  them, 
He  fumbles  up  into  a  loose  adieu, 
And  scants  us  with  a  single  famished  kiss, 
Distasted  with  the  salt  of  broken  tears.1' 

Take  this  example,  where  pathos  almost  touches 
the  grotesque. 

"  O  dear  Juliet,  why  art  thou  yet  so  fair? 
Shall  I  believe  that  unsubstantial  death  is  amorous, 
And  that  the  lean,  abhorred  monster  keeps  thee  liere 
I'  the  dark,  to  be  his  paramour?" 

Often  when  reading  the  marvellous  lines  of  Shake- 
speare, I  feel  that  his  thoughts  are  "  too  subtle  potent, 
tuned  too  sharp  in  sweetness,  for  the  capacity  of  my 


SHAKESPEARE.  4! 

ruder  powers."     Sometimes  I  cry  out,  "  O  churl  !- 
write  all,  and  leave  no  thoughts  for  those  who  follow 
after." 


IX. 


OHAKESPEARE  was  an  innovator,  an  iconoclast. 
He  cared  nothing  for  the  authority  of  men  or 
of  schools.     He  violated  the   "  unities,"  and  cared 
nothing  for  the  models  of  the  ancient  world. 

The  Greeks  insisted  that  nothing  should  be  in  a 
play  that  did  not  tend  to  the  catastrophe.  They  did 
not  believe  in  the  episode  —  in  the  sudden  contrasts 
of  light  and  shade — in  mingling  the  comic  and  the 
tragic.  The  sunlight  never  fell  upon  their  tears,  and 
darkness  did  not  overtake  their  laughter.  They  be- 
lieved that  nature  sympathized  or  was  in  harmony 
with  the  events  of  the  play.  When  crime  was  about 
to  be  committed  —  some  horror  to  be  perpetrated  - 
the  light  grew  dim,  the  wind  sighed,  the  trees  shiv- 
ered, and  upon  all  was  the  shadow  of  the  coming 
event. 

Shakespeare  knew  that  the  play  had  little  to  do 
with  the  tides  and  currents  of  universal  life  —  that 
Nature  cares  neither  for  smiles  nor  tears,  for  life  nor 


42  SHAKESPEARE. 

death,  and  that  the  sun  shines  as  gladly  on  coffins  as 
on  cradles. 

The  first  time  I  visited  the  Place  de  la  Concorde, 
where  during  the  French  Revolution  stood  the  guil- 
lotine, and  where  now  stands  an  Egyptian  obelisk  — 
a  bird,  sitting  on  the  top,  was  singing  with  all  its 
might.  —  Nature  forgets. 

One  of  the  most  notable  instances  of  the  violation 
by  Shakespeare  of  the  classic  model,  is  found  in  the 
6th  Scene  of  the  I.  Act  of  Macbeth. 

When  the  King  and  Banquo  approach  the  castle 
in  which  the  King  is  to  be  murdered  that  night,  no 
shadow  falls  athwart  the  threshold.  So  beautiful  is 
the  scene  that  the  King  says  : 

' '  This  castle  hath  a  pleasant  seat ;  the  air 
Nimbly  and  sweetly  recommends  itself 
Unto  our  gentle  senses. ' ' 

And  Banquo  adds  : 

' '  This  guest  of  summer, 
The  temple-haunting  martlet,  does  approve 
By  his  loved  mansionry  that  the  heaven's  breath 
Smells  wooingly  here  ;  no  jutty,  frieze, 
Buttress,  nor  coign  of  vantage,  but  this  bird 
Hath  made  his  pendent  bed  and  procreant  cradle. 
Where  they  most  breed  and  haunt,  I  have  observed 
The  air  is  delicate. ' ' 


SHAKESPEARE.  43 

Another  notable  instance  is  the  porter  sqene  im- 
mediately following  the  murder.  So,  too,  the  dia- 
logue with  the  clown  who  brings  the  asp  to  Cleopatra 
just  before  the  suicide,  illustrates  my  meaning. 

I  know  of  one  paragraph  in  the  Greek  drama 
worthy  of  Shakespeare.  This  is  in  "  Medea."  When 
Medea  kills  her  children  she  curses  Jason,  using  the 
ordinary  Billingsgate  and  papal  curse,  but  at  the 
conclusion  says  :  "  I  pray  the  gods  to  make  him  vir- 
tuous, that  he  may  the  more  deeply  feel  the  pang 
that  I  inflict." 

Shakespeare  dealt  in  lights  and  shadows.  He  was 
intense.  He  put  noons  and  midnights  side  by  side. 
No  other  dramatist  would  have  dreamed  of  adding 
to  the  pathos  —  of  increasing  our  appreciation  of 
Lear's  agony,  by  supplementing  the  wail  of  the  mad 
king  with  the  mocking  laughter  of  a  loving  clown. 

X. 

T^HE  ordinary  dramatists  —  the  men  of  talent  — 
•*•  (and  there  is  the  same  difference  between  talent 
and  genius  that  there  is  between  a  stone-mason  and 
a  sculptor)  create  characters  that  become  types. 
Types  are  of  necessity  caricatures  —  actual  men  and 
women  are  to  some  extent  contradictory  in  their 


44  SHAKESPEARE. 

actions.     Types  are  blown  in  the  one   direction  by 
the  one  wind — characters  have  pilots. 

In  real  people,  good  and  evil  mingle.  Types  are 
all  one  way,  or  all  the  other  —  all  good,  or  all  bad, 
all  wise  or  all  foolish. 

Pecksniff  was  a  perfect  type,  a  perfect  hypocrite  — 
and  will  remain  a  type  as  long  as  language  lives  —  a 
hypocrite  that  even  drunkenness  could  not  change. 
Everybody   understands    Pecksniff,   and    compared 
with  him  Tartuffe  was  an  honest  man. 

Hamlet  is  an  individual,  a  person,  an  actual  being 
—  and  for  that  reason  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion 
as  to  his  motives  and  as  to  his  character.  We  differ 
about  Hamlet  as  we  do  about  Csesar,  or  about  Shake- 
speare himself. 

Hamlet  saw  the  ghost  of  his  father  and  heard 
again  his  father's  voice,  and  yet,  afterwards,  he 
speaks  of  "  the  undiscovered  country  from  whose 
bourne  no  traveller  returns." 

In  this  there  is  no  contradiction.  The  reason  out- 
weighs the  senses.  If  we  should  see  a  dead  man 
rise  from  his  grave,  we  would  not,  the  next  day,  be- 
lieve that  we  did.  No  one  can  credit  a  miracle  until 
it  becomes  so  common  that  it  ceases  to  be  miracu- 
lous. 


SHAKESPEARE.  45 

Types  are  puppets  —  controlled  from  without  — 
characters  act  from  within.  There  is  the  same  differ- 
ence between  characters  and  types  that  there  is  be- 
tween springs  and  water- works,  between  canals  and 
rivers,  between  wooden  soldiers  and  heroes. 

In  most  plays  and  in  most  novels  the  characters 
are  so  shadowy  that  we  have  to  piece  them  out  with 
the  imagination. 

One  waking  in  the  morning  sometimes  sees  at  the 
foot  of  his  bed  a  strange  figure  —  it  may  be  of  an 
ancient  lady  with  cap  and  ruffles  and  with  the  ex- 
pression of  garrulous  and  fussy  old  age  —  but  when 
the  light  gets  stronger,  the  figure  gradually  changes 
and  he  sees  a  few  clothes  on  a  chair. 

The  dramatist  lives  the  lives  of  others,  and  in  order 
to  delineate  character  must  not  only  have  imagina- 
tion but  sympathy  with  the  character  delineated. 
The  great  dramatist  thinks  of  a  character  as  an  en- 
tirety, as  an  individual. 

I  once  had  a  dream,  and  in  this  dream  I  was  dis- 
cussing a  subject  with  another  man.  It  occurred  to 
me  that  I  was  dreaming,  and  I  then  said  to  myself: 
If  this  is  a  dream,  I  am  doing  the  talking  for  both 
sides  —  consequently  I  ought  to  know  in  advance 
what  the  other  man  is  going  to  say.  In  my  dream  I 


46  SHAKESPEARE. 

tried  the  experiment.  I  then  asked  the  other  man  a 
question,  and  before  he  answered  made  up  my  mind 
what  the  answer  was  to  be.  To  my  surprise,  the  man 
did  not  say  what  I  expected  he  would,  and  so  great 
was  my  astonishment  that  I  awoke. 

It  then  occurred  to  me  that  I  had  discovered  the 
secret  of  Shakespeare.  He  did,  when  awake,  what 
I  did  when  asleep  —  that  is,  he  threw  off  a  character 
so  perfect  that  it  acted  independently  of  him. 

In  the  delineation  of  character  Shakespeare  has 
no  rivals.  He  creates  no  monsters.  His  characters 
do  not  act  without  reason,  without  motive. 

lago  had  his  reasons.  In  Caliban,  nature  was  not 
destroyed — and  Lady  Macbeth  certifies  that  the 
woman  still  was  in  her  heart,  by  saying  : 

0 

"  Had  he  not  resembled  my  father  as  he  slept,  I  had  done  it." 

Shakespeare's  characters  act  from  within.  They 
are  centres  of  energy.  They  are  not  pushed  by  un- 
seen hands,  or  pulled  by  unseen  strings.  They  have 
objects,  desires.  They  are  persons — real,  living 
beings. 

Few  dramatists  succeed  in  getting  their  characters 
loose  from  the  canvas — their  backs  stick  to  the  wall 
— they  do  not  have  free  and  independent  action  — 


SHAKESPEARE.  47 

they  have  no  background,  no  unexpressed  motives 
-no  untold  desires.     They  lack  the  complexity  of 
the  real. 

Shakespeare  makes  the  character  true  to  itself. 
Christopher  Sly,  surrounded  by  the  luxuries  of  a 
lord,  true  to  his  station,  calls  for  a  pot  of  the  small- 
est ale. 

Take  one  expression  by  Lady  Macbeth.  You 
remember  that  after  the  murder  is  discovered — after 
the  alarm  bell  is  rung — she  appears  upon  the  scene 
wanting  to  know  what  has  happened.  MacdufT  re- 
fuses to  tell  her,  saying  that  the  slightest  word  would 
murder  as  it  fell.  At  this  moment  Banquo  comes 
upon  the  scene  and  MacdufT  cries  out  to  him  : 

''Our  royal  master's  murdered.  " 

What  does  Lady  Macbeth  then  say?  She  in  fact 
makes  a  confession  of  guilt.  The  weak  point  in  the 
terrible  tragedy  is  that  Duncan  was  murdered  in 
Macbeth's  castle.  So  when  Lady  Macbeth  hears 
what  they  suppose  is  news  to  her,  she  cries : 

"What!     In  our  house!" 

Had  she  been  innocent,  her  horror  of  the  crime 
would  have  made  her  forget  the  place — the  venue. 
Banquo  sees  through  this,  and  sees  through  her. 


48  SHAKESPEARE. 

Her  expression  was  a  light,  by  which  he  saw  her 
guilt — and  he  answers  : 

' '  Too  cruel  any  where. ' ' 

No  matter  whether  Shakespeare  delineated  clown 
or  king,  warrior  or  maiden  —  no  matter  whether  his 
characters  are  taken  from  the  gutter  or  the  throne— 
each  is  a  work  of  consummate  art,  and  when  he  is 
unnatural,  he  is  so  splendid  that  the  defect  is  for- 
gotten. 

When  Romeo  is  told  of  the  death  of  Juliet,  and 
thereupon  makes  up  his  mind  to  die  upon  her  grave, 
he  gives  a  description  of  the  shop  where  poison 
could  be  purchased.  He  goes  into  particulars  and 
tells  of  the  alligators  stuffed,  of  the  skins  of  ill-shaped 
fishes,  of  the  beggarly  account  of  empty  boxes,  of 
the  remnants  of  pack-thread,  and  old  cakes  of  roses 
— and  while  it  is  hardly  possible  to  believe  that 
under  such  circumstances  a  man  would  take  the 
trouble  to  make  an  inventory  of  a  strange  kind  of 
drug-store,  yet  the  inventory  is  so  perfect — the 
picture  is  so  marvellously  drawn  —  that  we  forget  to 
think  whether  it  is  natural  or  not. 

In  making  the  frame  of  a  great  picture  —  of  a  great 
scene — Shakespeare  was  often  careless,  but  the 


SHAKESPEARE.  49 

picture  is  perfect.  In  making  the  sides  of  the  arch 
he  was  negligent,  but  when  h£  placed  the  keystone, 
it  burst  into  blossom.;;  Of  course  there  are  many 
lines  in  Shakepeare  that  never  should  have  been 
written.  In  other  words,  there  are  imperfections  in 
his  plays.  But  we  must  remember  that  Shakespeare 
furnished  the  torch  that  enables  us  to  see  these  im- 
perfections. 

Shakespeare  speaks  through  his  characters,  and  we 
must  not  mistake  what  the  characters  say,  for  the 
opinion  of  Shakespeare.  No  one  can  believe  that 
Shakespeare  regarded  life  as  "  a  tale  told  by  an 
idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing." 
That  was  the  opinion  of  a  murderer,  surrounded  by 
avengers,  and  whose  wife — partner  in  his  crimes  — 
troubled  with  thick-coming  fancies  —  had  gone  down 
to  her  death. 

Most  actors  and  writers  seem  to  suppose  that  the 
lines  called  "  The  Seven  Ages "  contain  Shake- 
speare's view  of  human  life.  Nothing  could  be  farther 
from  the  truth.  The  lines  were  uttered  by  a  cynic, 
in  contempt  and  scorn  of  the  human  race. 

Shakespeare  did  not  put  his  characters  in  the  livery 
and  uniform  of  some  weakness,  peculiarity  or  pas- 
sion. He  did  not  use  names  as  tags  or  brands.  He 


5O  SHAKESPEARE. 

did  not  write  under  the  picture,  "This  is  a  villain." 
His  characters  need  no  suggestive  names  to  tell  us 
what  they  are  —  we  see  them  and  we  know  them  for 
ourselves. 

It  may  be  that  in  the  greatest  utterances  of  the 
greatest  characters  in  the  supreme  moments,  we 
have  the  real  thoughts,  opinions  and  convictions  of 
Shakespeare. 

Of  all  writers  Shakespeare  is  the  most  impersonal. 
He  speaks  through  others,  and  the  others  seem  to 
speak  for  themselves.  The  didactic  is  lost  in  the 
dramatic.  He  does  not  use  the  stage  as  a  pul- 
pit to  enforce  some  maxim.  He  is  as  reticent  as 
Nature. 

He  idealizes  the  common  and  transfigures  all 
he  touches — but  he  does  not  preach.  He  was  in- 
terested in  men  and  things  as  they  were.  He  did 
not  seek  to  change  them — but  to  portray.  He  was 
Nature's  mirror — and  in  that  mirror  Nature  saw 

herself. 

r> 

When  I  stood  amid  the  great  trees  of  Cali- 
fornia that  lift  their  spreading  capitals  against 
the  clouds,  looking  like  Nature's  columns  to 
support  the  sky,  I  thought  of  the  poetry  of  Shake- 
speare. 


SHAKESPEARE.  5 1 

XL 

\  \  T  HAT  a  procession  of  men  and  women — states- 
men and  warriors — kings  and  clowns  — 
issued  from  Shakespeare's  brain.  What  women  ! 

Isabella — in  whose  spotless  life  love  and  reason 
blended  into  perfect  truth. 

Juliet — within  whose  heart  passion  and  purity 
met  like  white  and  red  within  the  bosom  of  a  rose. 

Cordelia — who  chose  to  suffer  loss,  rather  than 
show  her  wealth  of  love  with  those  who  gilded  lies 
in  hope  of  gain. 

Hermione —  "  tender  as  infancy  and  grace  " — who 
bore  with  perfect  hope  and  faith  the  cross  of  shame, 
and  who  at  last  forgave  with  all  her  heart. 

Desdemona — so  innocent,  so  perfect,  her  love  so 
pure,  that  she  was  incapable  of  suspecting  that  an- 
other could  suspect,  and  who  with  dying  words 
sought  to  hide  her  lover's  crime — and  with  her  last 
faint  breath  uttered  a  loving  lie  that  burst  into  a 
perfumed  lily  between  her  pallid  lips. 

Perdita — A  violet  dim,  and  sweeter  than  the  lids 
of  Juno's  eyes — "  The  sweetest  low-born  lass  that 
ever  ran  on  the  green  sward."  And 

Helena — who  said  : 


52  SHAKESPEARE. 

"  I  know  I  love  in  vain,  strive  against  hope  — 
Yet  in  this  captious  and  intenable  sieve 
I  still  pour  in  the  waters  of  my  love, 
And  lack  not  to  lose  still. 
Thus,  Indian-like, 
Religious  in  mine  error,  I  adore 
The  sun  that  looks  upon  his  worshipper, 
But  knows  of  him  no  more." 

Miranda  —  who  told  her  love  as  gladly  as  a  flower 
gives  its  bosom  to  the  kisses  of  the  sun. 

And  Cordelia,  whose  kisses  cured  and  whose  tears 
restored.  And  stainless  Imogen,  who  cried  :  "  What 
is  it  to  be  false  ?  " 

And  here  is  the  description  of  the  perfect  woman  : 

"  To  feed  for  aye  her  lamp  and  flames  of  love  ; 
To  keep  her  constancy  in  plight  and  youth — 
Outliving  beauty's  outward  with  a  mind 
That  doth  renew  swifter  than  blood  decays. ' ' 


^  Shakespeare  has  done  more   for  woman   than  all 
the  other  dramatists  of  the  world. 

For  my  part.  I  love  the  Clowns.  I  love^  Launce 
and  his  dog  Crabb,  and  Gobbo,  whose  conscience 
threw  its  arms  around  the  neck  of  his  heart,  and 
Touchstone,  with  his  lie  seven  times  removed  ;  and 
dear  old  Dogberry  —  a  pretty  piece  of  flesh,  tedious 
as  a  king.  And  Bottom,  the  very  paramour  for  a 


SHAKESPEARE.  53 

sweet  voice,  longing  to  take  tfye  part  to  tear  a  cat  in  ; 
and  Autolycus,  the  snapper-up  of  unconsidered  trifles, 
sleeping  out  the  thought  for  the  life  to  come.  And 
great  Sir  John,  without  conscience,  and  for  that 
reason  unblamed  and  enjoyed  —  and  who  at  the  end 
babbles  of  green  fields,  and  is  almost  loved.  And 
ancient  Pistol,  the  world  his  oyster.  And  Bardolph, 
with  the  flea  on  his  blazing  nose,  putting  beholders 
in  mind  of  a  damned  soul  in  hell.  And  the  poor 
Fool,  who  followed  the  mad  king,  and  went  "  to  bed 
at  noon."  And  the  clown  who  carried  the  worm  of 
Nilus,  whose  "  biting  was  immortal."  And  Corin, 
the  shepherd  —  who  described  the  perfect  man  :  "  I 
am  a  true  laborer  :  I  earn  that  I  eat  —  get  that  I 
wear  —  owe  no  man  aught  —  envy  no  man's  happi- 
ness —  glad  of  other  men's  good  —  content." 

And  mingling  in  this  motley  throng,  Lear,  within 
whose  brain  a  tempest  raged  until  the  depths  were 
stirred,  and  the  intellectual  wealth  of  a  life  was  given 
back  to  memory  • —  and  then  by  madness  thrown  to 
storm  and  night  —  and  when  I  read  the  living  lines 
I  feel  as  though  I  looked  upon  the  sea  and  saw  it 
wrought  ,by  frenzied  whirlwinds,  until  the  buried 
treasures  and  the  sunken  wrecks  of  all  the  years 
were  cast  upon  the  shores. 


54  SHAKESPEARE. 

And  Othello  —  who  like  the  base  Indian  threw  a 
pearl  away  richer  than  all  his  tribe. 

And  Hamlet  —  thought-entangled  — hesitating  be- 
tween two  worlds. 

And  Macbeth  —  strange  mingling  of  cruelty  and 
conscience,  reaping  the  sure  harvest  of  successful 
crime  —  "  Curses  not  loud  but  deep  —  mouth-honor 
-breath." 

And  Brutus,  falling  on  his  sword  that  Caesar  might 
be  still. 

And  Romeo,  dreaming  of  the  white  wonder  of 
Juliet's  hand.  And  Ferdinand,  the  patient  log-man 
for  Miranda's  sake.  And  Florizel,  who,  "  for  all  the 
sun  sees,  or  the  close  earth  wombs,  or  the  profound 
seas  hide,"  would  not  be  faithless  to  the  low-born 
lass.  And  Constance,  weeping  for  her  son,  while 
grief  "  stuffs  out  his  vacant  garments  with  his  form." 

And  in  the  midst  of  tragedies  and  tears,  of  love 
and  laughter  and  crime,  we  hear  the  voice  of  the 
good  friar,  who  declares  that  in  every  human  heart, 
as  in  the  smallest  flower,  there  are  encamped  the 
opposed  hosts  of  good  and  evil  —  and  our  philosophy 
is  interrupted  by  the  garrulous  old  nurse,  whose  talk 
is  as  busily  useless  as  the  babble  of  a  stream  that 
hurries  by  a  ruined  mill. 


SHAKESPEARE.  55 

From  every  side  the  characters  crowd  upon  us  - 
the  men  and  women  born  of  Shakespeare's  brain. 
They  utter  with  a  thousand  voices  the  thoughts  of 
the  "  myriad-minded  "  man,  and  impress  themselves 
upon  us  as  deeply  and  vividly  as  though  they  really 
lived  with  us. 

Shakespeare  alone  has  delineated  love  in  every 
possible  phase — has  ascended  to  the  very  top,  and 
actually  reached  heights  that  no  other  has  imagined. 
I  do  not  believe  the  human  mind  will  ever  produce 
or  be  in  a  position  to  appreciate,  a  greater  love-play 
than  "  Romeo  and  Juliet."  It  is  a  symphony  in  which 
all  music  seems  to  blend.  The  heart  bursts  into 
blossom,  and  he  who  reads  feels  the  swooning  intox- 
ication of  a  divine  perfume. 

In  the  alembic  of  Shakespeare's  brain  the  baser 
metals  were  turned  to  gold — passions  became  vir- 
tues— weeds  became  exotics  from  some  diviner 
land — and  common  mortals  made  of  ordinary  clay 
outranked  the  Olympian  Gods.  In  his  brain  there 
was  the  touch  of  chaos  that  suggests  the  infinite  — 
that  belongs  to  genius.  Talent  is  measured  and 
mathematical — dominated  by  prudence  and  the 
thought  of  use.  Genius  is  tropical.  The  creative 
instinct  runs  riot,  delights  in  extravagance  and 


56  SHAKESPEARE. 

waste,  and  overwhelms  the  mental  beggars  of 
the  world  with  uncounted  gold  and  unnumbered 
gems. 

Some  things  are  immortal  :  The  plays  of  Shake- 
speare, the  marbles  of  the  Greeks,  and  the  music  of 
Wagner. 

XII. 

OH  AKESPEARE  was  the  greatest  of  philosophers. 
He  knew  the  conditions  of  success  —  of  hap- 
piness—  the  relations  that  men  sustain  to  each 
other,  and  the  duties  of  all.  He  knew  the  tides  and 
currents  of  the  heart  —  the  cliffs  and  caverns  of  the 
brain.  He  knew  the  weakness  of  the  will,  the  soph- 
istry of  desire  —  and 

' '  That  pleasure  and  revenge  have  ears  more  deaf  than  ad- 
ders to  the  voice  of  any  true  decision. ' ' 

He  knew  that  the  soul  lives  in  an  invisible  world 
—  that  flesh  is  but  a  mask,  and  that 

"There  is  no  art  to  find  the  mind's  construction 
In  the  face." 

He  knew  that  courage  should  be  the  servant  of 
judgment,  and  that 


SHAKESPEARE.  5  7 

' '  When  valor  preys  on  reason  it  eats  the  sword 
It  fights  with." 

He  knew  that  man  is  never  master  of  the  event, 
that  he  is  to  some  extent  the  sport  or  prey  of  the 
blind  forces  of  the  world,  and  that 

"  In  the  reproof  of  chance  lies  the  true  proof  of  men." 

Feeling  that  the  past  is  unchangeable,  and  that 
that  which  must  happen  is  as  much  beyond  control 
as  though  it  had  happened,  he  says  : 

'  *  Let  determined  things  to  destiny 
Hold  unbewailed  their  way." 

Shakespeare  was  great  enough  to  know  that  every 
human  being  prefers  happiness  to  misery,  and  that 
crimes  are  but  mistakes.  Looking  in  pity  upon  the 
human  race,  upon  the  pain  and  poverty,  the  crimes 
and  cruelties,  the  limping  travelers  on  the  thorny 
paths,  he  was  great  and  good  enough  to  say  : 

' '  There  is  no  darkness  but  ignorance. ' ' 

In  all  the  philosophies  there  is  no  greater  line.  This 
great  truth  fills  the  heart  with  pity. 

He  knew  that  place  and  power  do  not  give  happi- 
ness —  that  the  crowned  are  subject  as  the  lowest  to 
fate  and  chance. 


58  SHAKESPEARE. 

'  *  Within  the  hollow  crown 
That  rounds  the  mortal  temples  of  a  king 
Keeps  death  his  Court,  and  there  the  antic  sits 
Scoffing  his  state  and  grinning  at  his  pomp, 
Allowing  him  a  brief  and  little  scene 
To  monarchize  by  fear  and  kill  with  looks, 
Infusing  him  with  self  and  vain  conceit  — 
As  if  this  flesh  that  walls  about  our  life 
Were  brass  impregnable  ;  and  humored  thus, 
Comes  at  the  last  and  with  a  little  pin 
Bores  through  his  castle  wall — and  farewell  king!  " 

So,  too,  he  knew  that  gold  could  not  bring  joy  - 
that  death  and   misfortune  come  alike  to  rich  and 
poor,  because  : 

' '  If  thou  art  rich  thou  art  poor  ; 
For  like  an  ass  whose  back  with  ingots  bows 
Thou  bearest  thy  heavy  riches  but  a  journey, 
And  death  unloads  thee. ' ' 

In  some  of  his  philosophy  there  was  a  kind  of 
scorn  —  a  hidden  meaning  that  could  not  in  his  day 
and  time  have  safely  been  expressed.  You  will 
remember  that  Laertes  was  about  to  kill  the  king, 
and  this  king  was  the  murderer  of  his  own  brother, 
and  sat  upon  the  throne  by  reason  of  his  crime - 
and  in  the  mouth  of  such  a  king  Shakespeare  puts 
these  words  : 

"  There's  such  divinity  doth  hedge  a  king." 


SHAKESPEARE.  5$ 

So,  in  Macbeth  : 

' '  How  he  solicits   Heaven  himself  best  knows  ;   but 

strangely  visited  people 
All  swollen  and  ulcerous,  pitiful  to  the  eye, 
The  mere  despairs  of  surgery,  he  cures  ; 
Hanging  a  golden  stamp  about  their  necks. 
Put  on  with  holy  prayers  ;  and  'tis  spoken 
To  the  succeeding  royalty  —  he  leaves 
The  healing  benediction.     With  this  strange  virtue 
He  hath  a  heavenly  gift  of  prophecy, 
And  sundry  blessings  hang  about  his  throne, 
That  speak  him  full  of  grace. ' ' 

Shakespeare  was  the  master  of  the  human  heart  — 
knew  all  the  hopes,  fears,  ambitions,  and  passions 
that  sway  the  mind  of  man  ;  and  thus  knowing,  he 
declared  that 

' '  Love  is  not  love  that  alters 
When  it  alteration  finds. ' ' 

This  is  the  sublimest  declaration  in  the  literature 
of  the  world. 

Shakespeare  seems  to  give  the  generalization  — 
the  result  —  without  the  process  of  thought.  He 
seems  always  to  be  at  the  conclusion  —  standing 
where  all  truths  meet. 

In  one  of  the  Sonnets  is  this  fragment  of  a  line 
that  contains  the  highest  possible  truth  : 


60  SHAKESPEARE. 

"Conscience  is  born  of  love." 

If  man  were  incapable  of  suffering,  the  words 
right  and  wrong  never  could  have  been  spoken.  If 
man  were  destitute  of  imagination,  the  flower  of  pity 
never  could  have  blossomed  in  his  heart. 

We  suffer — we  cause  others  to  suffer — those  that 
we  love — and  of  this  fact  conscience  is  born. 

Love  is  the  many-colored  flame  that  makes  the 
fireside  of  the  heart.  It  is  the  mingled  spring  and 
autumn  —  the  perfect  climate  of  the  soul. 

XIII. 

TN  the  realm  of  comparison  Shakespeare  seems  to 
have  exhausted  the  relations,  parallels  and  simili- 
tudes of  things,     He  only  could  have  said  : 

' '  Tedious  as  a  twice-told  tale 
Vexing  the  ears  of  a  drowsy  man. ' ' 

1 '  Duller  than  a  great  thaw. 
Dry  as  the  remainder  biscuit  after  a  voyage/' 

In  the  words  of  Ulysses,  spoken  to  Achilles,  we 
find  the  most  wonderful  collection  of  pictures  and 
comparisons  ever  compressed  within  the  same  num- 
ber of  lines  : 


SHAKESPEARE.  6 1 

"Time  hath,  my  lord,  a  wallet  at  his  back, 
Wherein  he  puts  alms  for  oblivion,— 
A  great-sized  monster  of  ingratitudes  — 
Those  scraps  are  good  deeds  passed ;  which  are  devoured 
As  fast  as  they  are  made,  forgot  as  soon 
As  done  ;  perseverance,  dear  my  lord, 
Keeps  honor  bright :  to  have  done  is  to  hang 
Quite  out  of  fashion,  like  a  rusty  mail 
In  monumental  mockery.     Take  the  instant  way ; 
For  honor  travels  in  a  strait  so  narrow 
Where  one  but  goes  abreast ;  keep  then  the  path  ; 
For  emulation  hath  a  thousand  sons 
That  one  by  one  pursue ;  if  you  give  way, 
Or  hedge  aside  from  the  direct  forthright, 
Like  to  an  entered  tide,  they  all  rush  by 
And  leave  you  hindmost : 
Or,  like  a  gallant  horse  fallen  in  first  rank, 
Lie  there  for  pavement  to  the  abject  rear, 
O'errun  and  trampled  on  :  then  what  they  do  in  present, 
Tho'  less  than  yours  in  past,  must  o'ertop  yours  ; 
For  time  is  like  a  fashionable  host 
That  slightly  shakes  his  parting  guest  by  the  hand, 
And  with  his  arms  outstretched  as  he  would  fly, 
Grasps  in  the  comer  :  Welcome  ever  smiles, 
And  Farewell  goes  out  sighing. ' ' 

So    the    words   of  Cleopatra,    when    Charmain 
speaks : 

' '  Peace,  peace  : 

Dost  thou  not  see  my  baby  at  my  breast 
That  sucks  the  nurse  asleep  ? ' ' 


62  SHAKESPEARE. 

XIV. 

JVTOTHING  is  more  difficult  than  a  definition  —  a 
crystallization  of  thought  so  perfect  that  it  emits 
light.     Shakespeare  says  of  suicide  : 

' '  It  is  great  to  do  that  thing 
That  ends  all  other  deeds, 
Which  shackles  accident,  and  bolts  up  change. ' ' 

He  defines  drama  to  be  : 

' '  Turning  the  accomplishments  of  many  years 
Into  an  hour  glass." 

Of  death  : 

' '  This  sensible  warm  motion  to  become  a  kneaded  clod, 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction  and  to  rot. ' ' 

Of  memory  : 

"The  warder  of  the  brain." 

Of  the  body  : 

' '  This  muddy  vesture  of  decay. ' ' 
And  he  declares  that 

' '  Our  little  life  is  rounded  with  a  sleep.  " 
He  speaks  of  Echo  as  : 

'  *  The  babbling  gossip  of  the  air  "  — 

Romeo,  addressing  the  poison  that  he  is  about  to 
take,  says  : 


SHAKESPEARE.  63 

"  Come,  bitter  conduct,  come  unsavory  guide, 
Thou  desperate  pilot,  now^at  once  run  on 
The  dashing  rocks  thy  sea-sick,  weary  bark.  " 

He  describes  the  world  as 

' '  This  bank  and  shoal  of  time.  ' ' 

He  says  of  rumor  — 

"  That  it  doubles,  like  the  voice  and  echo.  " 

It  would  take  days  to  call  attention  to  the  perfect 
definitions,  comparisons  and  generalizations  of 
Shakespeare.  He  gave  us  the  deeper  meanings  of 
our  words  —  taught  us  the  art  of  speech.  He  was 
the  lord  of  language  —  master  of  expression  and 
compression. 

He  put  the  greatest  thoughts  into  the  shortest 
words  —  made  the  poor  rich  and  the  common  royal. 

Production  enriched  his  brain.  Nothing  exhausted 
him.  The  moment  his  attention  was  called  to  any 
subject  —  comparisons,  definitions,  metaphors  and 
generalizations  filled  his  mind  and  begged  for  utter- 
ance. His  thoughts  like  bees  robbed  every  blossom 
in  the  world,  and  then  with  "  merry  march  "  brought 
the  rich  booty  home  "  to  the  tent  royal  of  their 
emperor." 

Shakespeare  was  the  confidant  of  Nature.  To 
him  she  opened  her  "  infinite  book  of  secrecy,"  and 
in  his  brain  were  "  the  hatch  and  brood  of  time.  " 


64  SHAKESPEARE. 

XV. 

HPHERE  is  in  Shakespeare  the  mingling  of  laughter 
and  tears,  humor  and  pathos.  Humor  is  the 
rose,  wit  the  thorn.  Wit  is  a  crystallization,  humor 
an  efflorescence.  Wit  comes  from  the  brain,  humor 
from  the  heart.  Wit  is  the  lightning  of  the  soul. 

In  Shakespeare's  nature  was  the  climate  of  humor. 
He  saw  and  felt  the  sunny  side  even  of  the  saddest 
things.  "  You  have  seen  sunshine  and  rain  at  once." 
So  Shakespeare's  tears  fell  oft  upon  his  smiles.  In 
moments  of  peril  —  on  the  very  darkness  of  death 
there  comes  a  touch  of  humor  that  falls  like  a  fleck 
of  sunshine. 

Gonzalo,  when  the  ship   is  about  to  sink,  having 
seen  the  boatswain,  exclaims  : 

* '  I  have  great  comfort  from  this  fellow  ; 
Methinks  he  hath  no  drowning  mark  upon  him ; 
His  complexion  is  perfect  gallows.  ' ' 

Shakespeare  is  filled  with  the  strange  contrasts  of 
grief  and  laughter.     While  poor   Hero   is  supposed 
to  be  dead  —  wrapped  in  the  shroud  of  dishonor  - 
Dogberry  and  Verges  unconsciously  put  again   the 
wedding  wreath  upon  her  pure  brow. 

The  soliloquy  of  Launcelot  —  great  as   Hamlet's 
—  offsets  the  bitter  and  burning  words  of  Shylock. 


SHAKESPEARE.  65 

There  is  only  time  to  speak  of  Maria  in  "  Twelfth 
Night,"  of  Autolycus  in  the  "Winter's  Tale,"  of  the 
parallel  drawn  by  Fluellen  between  Alexander  of 
Macedon  and  Harry  of  Monmouth,  or  of  the  mar- 
vellous humor  of  Falstaff,  who  never  had  the  faintest 
thought  of  right  or  wrong  —  or  of  Mercutio,  that 
embodiment  of  wit  and  humor — or  of  the  grave- 
diggers  who  lamented  that  "  great  folk  should  have 
countenance  in  this  world  to  drown  and  hang"  them- 

o 

selves,  more  than  their  even  Christian,"  and  who 
reached  the  generalization  that  "  the  gallows  does 
well  because  it  does  well  to  those  who  do  ill." 

There  is  also  an  example  of  grim  humor  —  an  ex- 
ample without  a  parallel  in  literature,  so  far  as  I 
know.  Hamlet  having  killed  Polonius  is  asked  : 

11  Where' s  Polonius?" 

' '  At  supper. ' ' 

' '  At  supper  !  where  ? ' ' 

"  Not  where  he  eats,  but  where  he  is  eaten." 

Above  all  others,  Shakespeare  appreciated  the 
pathos  of  situation. 

Nothing  is  more  pathetic  than  the  last  scene  in 
"  Lear."  No  one  has  ever  bent  above  his  dead  who 
did  not  feel  the  words  uttered  by  the  mad  king,  — 
words  born  of  a  despair  deeper  than  tears  : 


66  SHAKESPEARE. 

"  Oh,  that  a  horse,  a  dog,  a  rat  hath  life 
And  thou  no  breath!" 

So  lago,  after  he  has  been  wounded,  says  : 
"I  bleed,  sir;  but  not  killed. " 

And  Othello  answers  from  the  wreck  and  shattered 
remnant  of  his  life  : 

' '  I  would  have  thee  live ; 
For  in  my  sense  it  is  happiness  to  die. ' ' 

When  Troilus  finds  Cressida  has  been  false,  he 
cries : 

' '  Let  it  not  be  believed  for  womanhood ; 
Think  !  we  had  mothers. ' ' 

Ophelia,  in  her  madness,  "the  sweet  bells  jangled 
out  o'  tune,"  says  softly  : 

' '  I  would  give  you  some  violets  ; 

But  they  withered  all  when  my  father  died. ' ' 

When  Macbeth  has  reaped  the  harvest,  the  seeds 
of  which  were  sown  by  his  murderous  hand,  he  ex- 
claims,—  and  what  could  be  more  pitiful  ? 

"I  'gin  to  be  aweary  of  the  sun." 

Richard  the  Second  feels  how  small  a  thing  it  is 
to  be,  or  to  have  been,  a  king,  or  to  receive  honors 


SHAKESPEARE.  67 

before  or  after  power  is  lost ;  and  so,  of  those  who 
stood  uncovered  before  him,  he  asks  this  piteous 
question  : 

"  I  live  with  bread,  like  you  ;  feel  want, 
Taste  grief,  need  friends  ;  subjected  thus, 
How  can  you  say  to  me  I  am  a  king  ?  " 

Think  of  the  salutation  of  Antony  to  the  dead 
Caesar  : 

"  Pardon  me,  thou  piece  of  bleeding  earth." 

When  Pisanio  informs  Imogen  that  he  had  been 
ordered  by  Posthumus  to  murder  her,  she  bares  her 
neck  and  cries  : 

' '  The  lamb  entreats  the  butcher  : 
Where  is  thy  knife  ?     Thou  art  too  slow 
To  do  thy  master's  bidding  when  I  desire  it." 

Antony,  as  the  last  drops  are  falling  from  his  self- 
inflicted  wound,  utters  with  his  dying  breath  to 
Cleopatra,  this  : 

"  I  here  importune  death  awhile,  until 
Of  many  thousand  kisses  the  poor  last 
I  lay  upon  thy  lips. ' ' 

To  me,  the  last  words  of  Hamlet  are  full  of  pathos  : 

"I  die,  Horatio. 

The  potent  poison  quite  o'er  crows  my  spirit    * 
The  rest  is  silence." 


68  SHAKESPEARE. 

XVI. 

OOME  have  insisted  that  Shakespeare  must  have 
been  a  physician,  for  the  reason  that  he  shows 
such  knowledge  of  medicine  —  of  the  symptoms  of 
disease  and  death — was  so  familiar  with  the  brain, 
and  with  insanity  in  all  its  forms. 

I  do  not  think  he  was  a  physician.  He  knew  too 
much — his  generalizations  were  too  splendid.  He 
had  none  of  the  prejudices  of  that  profession  in  his 
time.  We  might  as  well  say  that  he  was  a  musician, 
a  composer,  because  we  find  in  "  The  Two  Gentle- 
men of  Verona  "  nearly  every  musical  term  known 
in  Shakespeare's  time. 

Others  maintain  that  he  was  a  lawyer,  perfectly 
acquainted  with  the  forms,  with  the  expressions 
familiar  to  that  profession  —  yet  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  he  was  a  lawyer,  or  that  he  knew  more 
about  law  than  any  intelligent  man  should  know. 

He  was  not  a  lawyer.  His  sense  of  justice  was 
never  dulled  by  reading  English  law. 

Some  think  that  he  was  a  botanist,  because  he 
named  nearly  all  known  plants.  Others,  that  he  was 
an  astronomer,  a  naturalist,  because  he  gave  hints 
and  suggestions  of  nearly  all  discoveries. 


SHAKESPEARE.  69 

Some  have  thought  that  Jie  must  have  been  a 
sailor,  for  the  reason  that  the  orders  given  in  the 
opening  of  "  The  Tempest  "  were  the  best  that  could, 
under  the  circumstances,  have  been  given  to  save 
the  ship. 

For  my  part,  I  think  there  is  nothing  in  the  plays 
to  show  that  he  was  a  lawyer,  doctor,  botanist  or 
scientist.  He  had  the  observant  eyes  that  really 
see,  the  ears  that  really  hear,  the  brain  that  retains 
all  pictures,  all  thoughts,  logic  as  unerring  as  light, 
the  imagination  that  supplies  defects  and  builds  the 
perfect  from  a  fragment.  And  these  faculties,  these 
aptitudes,  working  together,  account  for  what  he 
did. 

He  exceeded  all  the  sons  of  men  in  the  splendor 
of  his  imagination.  To  him  the  whole  world  paid 
tribute,  and  nature  poured  her  treasures  at  his  feet. 
In  him  all  races  lived  again,  and  even  those  to  be 
were  pictured  in  his  brain. 

He  was  a  man  of  imagination  —  that  is  to  say,  of 
genius,  and  having  seen  a  leaf,  and  a  drop  of  water, 
he  could  construct  the  forests,  the  rivers,  and  the 
seas  —  and  in  his  presence  all  the  cataracts  would 
fall  and  foam,  the  mists  rise,  the  clouds  form  and 
float. 


7O  SHAKESPEARE. 

If  Shakespeare  knew  one  fact,  he  knew  its  kindred 
and  its  neighbors.  Looking  at  a  coat  of  mail,  he 
instantly  imagined  the  society,  the  conditions,  that 
produced  it  and  what  it,  in  turn,  produced.  He  saw 
the  castle,  the  moat,  the  draw-bridge,  the  lady  in  the 
tower,  and  the  knightly  lover  spurring  across  the 
plain.  He  saw  the  bold  baron  and  the  rude  retainer, 
the  trampled  serf,  and  all  the  glory  and  the  grief  of 
feudal  life. 

He  lived  the  life  of  all. 

He  was  a  citizen  of  Athens  in  the  days  of  Pericles. 
He  listened  to  the  eager  eloquence  of  the  great  ora- 
tors, and  sat  upon  the  cliffs,  and  with  the  tragic  poet 
heard  "  the  multitudinous  laughter  of  the  sea."  He 
saw  Socrates  thrust  the  spear  of  question  through 
the  shield  and  heart  of  falsehood.  He  was  present 
when  the  great  man  drank  hemlock,  and  met  the 
night  01  death,  tranquil  as  a  star  meets  morning. 
He  listened  to  the  peripatetic  philosophers,  and  was 
unpuzzled  by  the  sophists.  He  watched  Phidias  as 
he  chiseled  shapeless  stone  to  forms  of  love  and 
awe. 

He  lived  by  the  mysterious  Nile,  amid  the  vast 
and  monstrous.  He  knew  the  very  thought  that 
wrought  the  form  and  features  of  the  Sphinx.  He 


SHAKESPEARE.  7 1 

heard  great  Memnon's  morning  song  when  marble 
lips  were  smitten  by  the  sun.  He  laid  him  down 
with  the  embalmed  and  waiting  dead,  and  felt  within 
their  dust  the  expectation  of  another  life,  mingled 
with  cold  and  suffocating  doubts  —  the  children  born 
of  long  delay. 

He  walked  the  ways  of  mighty  Rome,  and  saw 
great  Caesar  with  his  legions  in  the  field.  He  stood 
with  vast  and  motley  throngs  and  watched  the 
triumphs  given  to  victorious  men,  followed  by  un- 
crowned kings,  the  captured  hosts,  and  all  the  spoils 
of  ruthless  war.  He  heard  the  shout  that  shook  the 
Coliseum's  roofless  walls,  when  from  the  reeling 
gladiator's  hand  the  short  sword  fell,  while  from  his 
bosom  gushed  the  stream  of  wasted  life. 

He  lived  the  life  of  savage  men.  He  trod  the 
forests'  silent  depths,  and  in  the  desperate  game  of 
life  or  death  he  matched  his  thought  against  the  in- 
stinct of  the  beast. 

He  knew  all  crimes  and  all  regrets,  all  virtues  and 
their  rich  rewards.  He  was  victim  and  victor,  pur- 
suer and  pursued,  outcast  and  king.  He  heard  the 
applause  and  curses  of  the  world,  and  on  his  heart 
had  fallen  all  the  nights  and  noons  of  failure  and 
success. 


72  SHAKESPEARE. 

He  knew  the  unspoken  thoughts,  the  dumb  desires, 
the  wants  and  ways  of  beasts.  He  felt  the  crouch- 
ing tiger's  thrill,  the  terror  of  the  ambushed  prey, 
and  with  the  eagles  he  had  shared  the  ecstasy  of 
flight  and  poise  and  swoop,  and  he  had  kin  with 
sluggish  serpents  on  the  barren  rocks  uncoiling 
slowly  in  the  heat  of  noon. 

He  sat  beneath  the  bo-tree's  contemplative  shade, 
wrapped  in  Buddha's  mighty  thought,  and  dreamed 
all  dreams  that  light,  the  alchemist,  has  wrought  from 
dust  and  dew,  and  stored  within  the  slumbrous 
poppy's  subtle  blood. 

He  knelt  with  awe  and  dread  at  every  shrine  - 
he  offered  every  sacrifice,  and   every  prayer  —  felt 
the  consolation  and  the  shuddering  fear  —  mocked 
and  worshipped  all  the  gods  —  enjoyed  all  heavens, 
and  felt  the  pangs  of  every  hell. 

He  lived  all  lives,  and  through  his  blood  and  brain 
there  crept  the  shadow  and  the  chill  of  every  death, 
and  his  soul,  like  Mazeppa,  was  lashed  naked  to  the 
wild  horse  of  every  fear  and  love  and  hate. 

The  Imagination  had  a  stage  in  Shakespeare's 
brain,  whereon  were  set  all  scenes  that  lie  between 
the  morn  of  laughter  and  the  night  of  tears,  and 
where  his  players  bodied  forth  the  false  and  true,  the 


SHAKESPEARE.  73 

joys  and  griefs,  the  careless  shallows  and  the  tragic 

C\ 

deeps  of  universal  life. 

From  Shakespeare's  brain  there  poured  a  Niagara 
of  gems  spanned  by  Fancy's  seven-hued  arch.  H.e 
was  as  many-sided  as  clouds  are  many-formed.  To 
him  giving  was  hoarding  —  sowing  was  harvest  — 
and  waste  itself  the  source  of  wealth.  Within  his 
marvellous  mind  were  the  fruits  of  all  thought  past, 
the  seeds  of  all  to  be.  As  a  drop  of  dew  contains 
the  image  of  the  earth  and  sky,  so  all  there  is  of  life 
was  mirrored  forth  in  Shakespeare's  brain. 

Shakespeare  was  an  intellectual  ocean,  whose 
waves  touched  all  the  shores  of  thought ;  withint 
which  were  all  the  tides  and  waves  of  destiny  and. 
will  ;  over  which  swept  all  the  storms  of  fate,  ambi- 
tion and  revenge  ;  upon  which  fell  the  gloom  and 
darkness  of  despair  and  death  and  all  the  sunlight  of 
content  and  love,  and  within  which  was  the  inverted 
sky  lit  with  the  eternal  stars  —  an  intellectual  ocean 
-towards  which  all  rivers  ran,  and  from  which  now 
the  isles  and  continents  of  thought  receive  their  dew 
and  rain. 


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A  Lay  Sermon.     On  the  Labor  Question.    Paper,  5  cents. 

Crimes  Against  Criminals.  Delivered  before  the  New  York  State 
Bar  Association,  at  Albany,  N.  Y.,  Jan.  21, 1890.  Paper,  10  cents. 

Life.  A  Prose-Poem.  In  color,  on  board,  beveled,  gilt  edges,  16%  x!2,  (for 
mantel,  wall  or  easel,)  75  cents.  Illustrated. 

Lithograph  Of   R.  G.  Ingersoll.     22  x  28  inch.,  heavy  plate  paper,  50  c. 

Photographs  of  Col.  Ingersoll,  18x24,15.00.  imperial, iyz x is, fi.so. 

Cabinet,  25  cts.    Ingersoll  and  granddaughter  Eva  III.,  (a  home  picture,)  35  cts. 

About  the  Holy  Bible.  Just  out.  A  new  Lecture  About  the  Holy 
Bible.  Price,  paper,  25  cents. 

Shakespeare.  Ingersoll's  Great  Lecture  on  Shakespeare,  with  a  rare  and 
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Lecture  On  Abraham  Lincoln.  Justout.  With  a  handsome,  new 
portrait.  Price,  paper,  25  cents. 

The   Great  Ingersoll    Controversy,     containing  the  Famous 

Christmas  Sermon,  by  Colonel  B.  G.  Ingersoll,  the  indignant  protests  thereby 
evoked  from  ministers  of  various  denominations,  and  Col.  Ingersoll's  replies 
to  the  same.  A  work  of  tremendous  interest  to  every  thinking  man  and  woman. 
Price,  paper,  25  cts. 

IS  Suicide  a  Sin?  "Something  Brand  New!"  Ingersoll's  startling, 
brilliant  and  thrillingly  eloquent  letters,  which  created  such  a  sensation  when 
published  in  the  New  York  World,  together  with  the  replies  of  famous  clergymen 
and  writers,  a  verdict  from  a  jury  of  eminent  men  of  New  York,  Curious  Facts 
About  Suicides,  celebrated  essays  and  opinions  of  noted  men,  and  an  astonish- 
ing and  original  chapter,  Great  Suicides  of  History  !  Price,  paper,  25  cts. 

An  Open  Letter  to  Indiananolis  Clergymen.     By  colonel 

B.  G.  Ingersoll.  To  which  is  added  "  The  Genesis  of  Life,"  by  W.  H.  Lamaster. 
Paper,  25  cents. 


Col.  Ingersoll's  Note  to  the  Public. 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  July  10,  1889. 

I  wish  to  notify  the  public  that  all  books  and  pamphlets  purporting  to  contain  my.  lec- 
tures, and  not;  containing  the  imprint  of  Mr.  C.  P.  FABKELL  as  publisher,  are  spurious, 
grossly  inaccurate,  filled  with  mistakes,  horribly  printed,  and  outrageously  unjust  to  me. 
The  publishers  of  all  such  are  simply  literary  thieves  and  pirates,  and  are  obtaining  money 
from  the  public  under  false  pretences.  These  wretches  have  published  one  lecture  under 
four  titles,  and  several  others  under  two  or  three.  I  take  this  course  to  warn  the  public 
that  thesepublications  are  fraudulent  ;  the  only  correct  editions  being  those  published  by 
Mr.  C.  P. 


INOERSOLL. 


C.  P.  FARRELL,  40O  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York. 


PROSE -POEMS 

—  AJMD  — 

SELECTIONS, 


ROBERT  ft    [NGERSOLL. 
--**-  VA0     A--,    , -^p- 

Third  Edition,  Revised  and  Enlarged. 

R  ^andsome  Q\xarto,  contaming  oner  30O  pages. 


r  I  "^  HIS  is,  beyond  question,  the  most  elegant  volume  in  Liberal  literature.    Its 

mechanical  finish  is  worthy  of  its  intrinsic  excellence.    No  expense  has  been 

-^      spared  to  make  it  the  thing  of  beauty  it  is.    The  type  is  large  and  clear,  the 

paper  heavy,  highly  calendered  and  richly  tinted,  the  press-work  faultless,  and  th« 

binding  as  perfect  as  the  best  materials  and  skill  can  make  it.    The  book  is  in  every 

way  0,3  artistic  triumph. 

As  to  the  contents,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  they  include,  some  of  the  choicest 
utterances  of  the  greatest  writer  on  the  topics  treated  that  has  ever  lived. 

Those  who  have  not  the  good  fortune  to  own  all  of  Mr.  Ingersoll's  published 
works,  will  have  in  this  book  of  selections  many  bright  samples  of  his  lofty  thought, 
his  matchless  eloquence,  his  wonderful  imagery,  and  his  epigrammatic  and  poetic 
power.  The  collection  includes  all  of  the  "  Tributes  "  that  have  become  famous  in 
literature  —  notably  those  to  his  brother  E.  C.  Ingersoll,  Lincoln,  Grant,  Beecher  and 
Eiizur  Wright;  his  peerless  monograms  on  "The  Vision  of  War,"  Love,  Liberty, 
Science,  Nature,  The  Imagination,  Decoration  Day  Oration,  and  on  the  great  heroes 
of  intellectual  liberty.  Besides  these  are  innumerable  gems  taken  here  and  there 
from  the  orations,  speeches,  arguments,  toasts,  lectures,  letters,  and  day  to  day  con- 
versations of  the  author. 

The  book  is  designed  for,  and  will  be  accepted  by,  admiring  friends  as  a  n  -e 
personal  souvenir.  To  help  it  serve  this  purpose,  a  fine  steel  portrait,  with  autogrsxph 
fac-simile,  has  been  prepared  especially  for  it.  In  the  more  elegant  styles  of  bindir  g 
tt  is  eminently  suited  for  presentation  purposes,  for  any  season  or  occasion. 

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ARQLJJVEENT 

BY 

ROBERT  G.   INGERSOLL 

IN  THE 

TRIAL   OK  C.    B.    REYNOLD'S 

FOR 

"  ^Blasphemy, " 

AT    NKDR.RISTO\VN,     NEW 


Stenographically  reported,  and  revised  by  the  Author. 


Handsome  8vo,   86  pp.,   beautiful  type,  fine  paper, 
Price,  cloth,   5O  cts. ;    paper  cover,  25  cts. 


In  this  Argument  MR.  INGERSOLL  again  shows  his  great 
forensic  powers.  All  his  heart  and  brain  are  in  it.  It  is  one 
of  his  greatest  productions.  It  is  in  his  chosen  field  of  intel- 
lectual combat,  and  we  see  him  as  the  splendid  champion  of 
human  liberty  and  the  rights  of  man.  His  love  of  freedom  and 
justice,  hatred  of  tyranny  and  chains,  sympathy  for  the  op- 
pressed, misguided  and  enthralled,  his  courage  and  candor, 
have  in  this  Argument  full  scope  of  expression,  and  he  makes 
grand  use  of  the  opportunity.  Such  a  flood  of  light — of 
eloquence,  legal  learning,  logic,  pathos,  poetry  and  patriotism 
is  not  often  poured  out  in  a  Court  of  Justice. 

The  many  calls  for  this  Argument  in  complete  anoT accurate 
shape  have  led  to  this  publication,  as  revised  by  MR.  INGER- 
SOLL himself.  All  other  publications  are  the  merest  fictions — 
reprints  from  meagre  and  misleading  newspaper  references. 

Lawyers  and  advocates  will  find  this  the  model  of  an  address 
to  a  jury  ;  statesmen  and  politicians  a  clear  exposition  of  Con- 
stitutional rights  and  powers  ;  and  intelligent,  patriotic  and  free 
men  and  women  everywhere,  a  Magna  Charta  of  their  rights. 

Address  C  P.  FARRELL,  Publisher.  400  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York  City. 


A  New  Rdition.     Just  Published! 


A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  THE  BIBLE: 

BEING  AN  ACCOUNT    OF   THE   FORMATION 
AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CANON. 

BY 

BRONSON   C   KEELER. 

Price,  Cloth,  75  cents.       Paper,  60  cents. 


This  book  should  be  read  by  every  Clergyman,   Layman, 
Scholar  and  Liberal. 


I  have  read  Mr.  Keeler's  book  with  great  pleasure  and  profit.  He 
gives,  in  my  opinion,  a  clear  and  intelligent  account  of  the  growth  of 
the  bible.  He  shows  why  books  were  received  as  inspired,  and  why 
they  were  rejected.  He  does  not  deal  in  opinions,  but  in  fads ;  and 
for  the  correctness  of  his  facts,  he  refers  to  the  highest  authorities. 
He  has  shown  exactly  who  the  Christian  fathers  were,  and  the  weight 
that  their  evidence  is  entitled  to.  The  first  centuries  of  Christianity 
are  filled  with  shadow ;  most  histories  of  that  period  simply  tell  us 
what  did  not  happen,  and  even  the  statements  of  what  did  not  happen 
are  contradictory.  The  falsehoods  do  not  agree.  Mr.  Keeler  must 
have  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  in  the  examination  of  a  vast  number 
of  volumes,  and  the  amount  of  information  contained  in  his  book 
could  not  be  collected  in  years.  Every  minister,  every  college  pro- 
fessor, and  every  man  who  really  wishes  to  know  something  about 
the  origin  and  growth  of  the  bib*e,  should  read  this  book.— R  Q 
INGERSOLL. 


A  Grand  Book  :.  as  interesting  and  entertaining  as  any  novel! 


INGERSOLL'S 

Interviews  on  Talmage 

These  Interviews  were  called  out  in  answer  to  a  series  of 
theological  discourses  by  Mr.  Talmage.  Three  of  them  were 
originally  given  to  a  reporter  of  the  daily  press,  but  were  after- 
wards revised  and  enlarged  and  three  others  added.  The  three 
newspaper  reports  being  immediately  pirated  by  so-called  enter- 
prising but  unprincipled  publishers,  were  put  upon  the  market  in 
flimsy  paper  covers  and  heralded  as  the  genuine  "  Ingersoll  In- 
terviews." It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  in  no  other  shape  than  the 
present  complete  volume  are  these  "  Interviews  "  to  be  had  in 
their  accurate  and  authorized  entirety. 

As  to  the  subject-matter  it  is  essentially  polemical,  although 
not  bitterly  so.  The  foolish  as  well  as  serious  phases  of  theo- 
logical ignorance  and  assumption  are  exposed  to  merited  ridicule, 
and  the  weapons  of  good-natured  wit  and  sarcasm  are  employed 
to  laugh  and  shame  religious  superstition  and  arrogance  out  of 
court.  In  the  "  Talmagian  Catechism  "  especially,  which  sums 
up  the  six  interviews,  are  shafts  of  wit  and  satire  as  keen  and 
polished  as  ever  sped  from  human  brain.  They  go  straight  to  the 
mark,  and  remind  one  of  Voltaire's  pointed  though  not  poisoned 
arrows  aimed  at  the  priestly  pretensions  of  his  day.  In  the 
graver  and  more  serious  statements  and  arguments,  the  facts  and 
figures  are  splendidly  marshalled  and  bear  down  with  resistless 
form  upon  the  theological  foe,  breaking  his  ranks  and  scattering 
his  forces  like  chaff  before  a  gale. 

There  is  not  in  literature  another  such  book.  It  is^  a  free- 
thought  library  in  itself,  and  especially  timely  just  now  when 
bibles  and  creeds  are  being  overhauled  and  ''revision  and  divis- 
ion are  in  the  air."  No  collection  of  Mr.  Ingersoll's  books  is 
complete  that  does  not  include  this  in  some  respects  his  most 
remarkable  work. 

A  handsome  8°,  443  pages,  gilt  top,  beveled  edges,  good  paper, 
bold  type,  $2.00.  From  same  plates,  plain  cloth,  $1.25.  Paper, 
500.  Sent  post-paid  upon  receipt  of  price. 

C.  P.  FARRELL,  PUBLISHER,  New  York. 


INGERSOLL'S  LECTURES, 

-UN  ONE  VOLUME.^ 


CONTENTS: 


THE   GODS.  HUMBOLDT,  INDIVIDUALITY, 

THOMAS   PAINE,  HERETICS  AND  HERESIES. 

THE  GHOSTS. 

THE   LIBERTY   OF  MAN,  WOMAN  AND  CHILD, 

THE   CENTENNIAL   ORATION,  OR  DECLARATION  OF 
INDEPENDENCE,  July  4,  1876. 

WHAT  I  KNOW  ABOUT  FARMING  IN  ILLINOIS. 

SPEECH  AT  CINCINNATI  IN  1876,  nominating 

James  G.  Blaine  for  the  Presidency. 

THE  PAST  RISES  BEFORE  ME;  OR,  VISION  OF  WAR, 
an  extract  from  a  Speech  made  at  the  Soldiers  and   Sailors 
Reunion  at  Indianapolis,  Indiana,  Sept.  21,  1876. 

A  TRIBUTE   TO   EBON   C.   INGERSOLL. 

SOME   MISTAKES   OF   MOSES. 

WHAT  MUST  WE   DO  TO   BE  SAVED? 

SIX  INTERVIEWS  WITH   ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

ON  SIX  SERMONS  BY  THE  Rev.  T.  DEWITT 

TALMAGE,    D.  D. ;  to  which  is  added  a 

TALMAGIAN   CATECHISM. 

And  FOUR    PREFACES,  which  contain   some  of  Mr.  Ingersoll's 
wittiest  and  brightest  sayings. 

This  volume  contains  a  fine  steel  portrait  of  the  author,  and 
has  had  the  greatest  popularity,  is  beautifully  bound  in  Half 
Morocco,  rriottled  edges,  1,300  pages,  good  paper,  large  type, 
small.  8yo. 

Price,  post  paid,  $5.00. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

REC'D  LD 

SEP  2  7  1962 

!  "  f^^m 

REC'D  LD 

NOl/30'63.],4A 

J_ 

11    ' 

LD  21A-50m-3,'62 

(C7097slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


yC 1 08324 


M51O347 


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